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LOVE AND LIFE 











LOVE AND LIFE 


BY 


LOUISE MAUNSELL FIELD 

il 



NEW YORK 

E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY 
681 Fifth Avenue 







Copyright, 1923, 

By E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY 


All Right8 Reserved 



Printed in the United States of America 


SEP 24 ’23 a 

©C1A759089 ^ 

*Wo *V 






IN MEMORY OF 


M- p. % 

















CONTENTS 


BOOK PAGE 

I. Washington Square, North . i 

II. Livingston Place.99 

III. West Hillsdale. 139 

IV. Riverside Drive.183 

V. STU YVES ANT PARK. 219 












BOOK I 

WASHINGTON SQUARE, NORTH 



















LOVE AND LIFE 


BOOK I 

WASHINGTON SQUARE, NORTH 


CHAPTER FIRST 

When Paul Frear, archaeologist, invalid and recluse, 
died at the early age of forty-seven, it was with the grati¬ 
fying conviction that he was leaving his only daughter, 
if not rich, at any rate very well off. Else he never 
would have appointed his affluent step-sister, Honoria, 
and her yet more affluent husband, Blazius Bleecker 
Hetherington, sixth of the name, his executors and Lyn- 
neth’s guardians. 

But Paul Frcar’s knowledge of the ancient Greeks was 
excelled only by his ignorance of the modern stock- 
promoter. The bundles of certificates found in his 
safe deposit box proved valuable merely as testimo¬ 
nials to the fecundity of the human imagination. A very 
small amount of ready money and the old white house 
among the New England hills, in which he had secluded 
himself after the motor accident which crippled him and 
killed his young wife, were the sole negotiable portions 
of Lynneth’s inheritance. 

Which partly explains why a frown slowly deepened 

3 




4 


LOVE AND LIFE 


on Mrs. Bleecker Hetherington’s usually serene fore¬ 
head as she listened, one November evening some eight 
months after Paul Frear’s death, to the concluding sen¬ 
tences of the letter her husband was reading aloud: 

“. . . So you see I shall have to come to New York. 
There is no work for me here, and I must begin to earn 
my living at once. Please remember me to Aunt Hon- 
oria, and believe me, 

“Sincerely and gratefully yours, Lynneth Frear. ,, 

Carefully folding the letter Mr. Hetherington replaced 
it in his lizard-skin pocket-book, took off his gold-rimmed 
eye-glasses, and demanded with much deliberation and 
no small amount of acidity; “Well, Honoria! What do 
you think about that?” 

But Blazius Bleecker Hetherington’s second wife—he 
had been a widower with an only child when he married 
Honoria van Sturtevant—though by no means a clever 
woman, was an extremely prudent one. She was not yet 
ready to commit herself; she temporized. 

“It’s evident the girl has made up her mind,” she 
responded slowly. 

“Quite so; quite so. It’s putting me in a very awk¬ 
ward position, very awkward indeed! What will people 
say if I allow a twenty-year-old girl, my wife’s niece— 
oh yes; I know she isn’t actually your niece, but that’s 
what everybody will call her—to go traipsing around the 
city looking for a job?” Mr. Hetherington spoke as one 
whose just grievance no rational person could deny. 

“It wouldn’t be particularly pleasant for me, either,” 
asserted Mrs. Hetherington ruminatively. Absence of 
imagination makes difficult the weighing even of precise 
and manifest evils. 

They had dined alone that evening, and were now 
having coffee in the library of the big, old-fashioned 
house on the north side of Washington Square, built in 
a characteristically solid and prosaic manner by Blazius 
Bleecker Hetherington, Third. Much of the substantial 


WASHINGTON SQUARE, NORTH 


5 


rosewood furniture had belonged to the yet older family 
residence on Bowling Green, and from the white pan- 
nelled walls the portraits of by-gone Bleeckers and Heth- 
eringtons — Roman-nosed, stiffly starched matrons and 
high-collared patriarchs—gazed with austere approbation 
upon the couple they had watched pass from a calm and 
prosperous youth into an even more calm and prosperous 
middle-age. Through the tall windows, heavily curtained 
and valanced with the massive brocades which had al¬ 
ready survived at least two generations, the noises of the 
outer world came muffled and sullen. 

“What does the child fancy she can do?” Mrs. Heth- 
erington’s habitual placidity had been partly restored 
during the pause which enabled her to reach a decision. 
But she was still tapping her black velvet covered lap 
with the platinum lorgnon hanging from her neck on a 
diamond-studded chain—an unfailing symptom of mental 
disturbance, as her husband very well knew. 

“It appears she acted as her father’s secretary, and 
has an idea of doing something of the sort in an office. 
I thought she’d stay on with those nice old ladies. They 
were willing to keep her, and I wouldn’t have objected 
to paying her board. It would have been so much more 
suitable! and she likes living in the country.” 

This was not a deliberate falsehood; merely a suppo¬ 
sition based on knowledge of what would contribute most 
to his own well-being. 

Another moment’s reflection: then Mrs. Hetherington 
suggested mildly: “Why not have her come to us ?” 

“My dear Honoria! The fact that your father, a 
widower, married her father’s mother, a widow, doesn’t 
make her a member of Our Family!” 

“There isn’t any blood relationship, of course. But 
Paul and I were brought up like brother and sister.” 
Mrs. Hetherington’s mildness was as the mildness of 
milk. 

“Quite so; quite so. But after he quarrelled with your 


6 


LOVE AND LIFE 


father you were estranged for years. You never even 
heard from him until after he was dead!” 

Mr. Hetherington referred, not to any spiritualistic 
communication from the defunct Paul, but to that clause 
in his will which appointed his step-sister and her hus¬ 
band joint guardians of Lynneth. 

Mrs. Hetherington’s placidity was not equal to the task 
of perfectly concealing her embarrassment, the embar¬ 
rassment of one who ordinarily avoided emotions as 
sedulously as she did contagious diseases. The tapping 
of the lorgnon was quicker than her words, her voice 
uncertain, and very low: “I’m not sure I was right about 
all that. I’ve often thought I ought perhaps to have done 
something when Paul’s wife died. Written to him, or 
—or something. And at the last he did think of me.” 

Mr. Blazius Bleecker Hetherington—in his college days 
ironically nick-named “Blazing Bleeck”—suppressed an 
undignified desire to snort. But he had never yet failed 
in politeness to this second wife of his, and would not 
now. 

“Quite so, my dear, quite so,” he said hurriedly, 
vaguely wondering whether he ought not to pat her hand. 
They were an undemonstrative couple, and her barely 
articulate implications of regret and scruple were dis¬ 
concerting to them both. But then there was in this 
matter of Paul Frear’s daughter so much that was dis¬ 
concerting and unpleasant! They were accustomed to a 
successful evading of the unpleasant. 

“I think Lynneth had better come to us, at least for 
a while,” Mrs. Hetherington went on more confidently. 
“I’ll need some one to help me with the lists and things 
for Lisa’s wedding, and she can take Esther Lamont’s 
place as bridesmaid. No one need know she hasn’t been 
in mourning for a year or two. She’s never been any¬ 
where, or had any good times. I’d like to give her a 
chance.” 

A chance to marry, understood. The business of earn- 


WASHINGTON SQUARE, NORTH 


7 


ing a living was no doubt entirely proper, admirable even, 
for ordinary young women—was not Mrs. Hetherington 
chairman of the Board of Lady Managers of a Working 
Girls’ Home?—but other standards must be applied to 
one who was, no matter how remotely, related to 
Mrs. Blazius Bleecker Hetherington, born Honoria van 
Sturtevant. 

Mr. Hetherington made a very slight gesture with the 
plump and well-tended hand in which he held a plump 
and particularly choice cigar. His starched shirt-front 
creaked as he sighed inaudibly; “You never can tell what 
a girl will take it into her head to do, my dear. Look 
at Lisa!” 

Mr. Hetherington’s elder daughter, the only child of 
his long dead, almost forgotten first wife, was soon to 
be married to a young man possessed of good looks, 
expensive tastes, little money, and no occupation. 

“That’s different!” There was a subcurrent of un¬ 
conscious triumph in Mrs. Hetherington’s tone; she in¬ 
stinctively seized the opportunity to score off her prede¬ 
cessor. “If Lisa’s mother hadn’t left her so much 
money—! Lynneth hasn’t anything. Besides, Phil 
Armytage is really rather charming. His great-grand¬ 
mother was a Ravenel of Virginia, and he’s devoted to 
Lisa!” 

Mr. Hetherington did not respond. He was usually 
ready to bestow the cachet of his gracious approbation 
upon that Providence which had demonstrated its wisdom 
by giving him an ample fortune, an aristocratic old name, 
a handsome wife and one rarely beautiful daughter, Val¬ 
erie, child of this second wife. Yet there were times 
when its bounties fell provokingly short of his just ex¬ 
pectations—as they had certainly done in this affair of 
Lisa’s engagement. Now an idea entered his mind and 
he spoke slowly, contemplating the tip of his cigar, and 
avoiding his wife’s eyes: 

“Well, my dear, if you need some one to help you, I 


8 


LOVE AND LIFE 


see no reason why Lynneth shouldn’t prove useful. You 
might write and make her the oiler. She’s very proud, 
and I’m sure she’ll be much happier if she’s doing a little 
something for you, in return for all you’ll be doing for 
her.” 

He paused, seeming to give his entire attention to the 
neat bestowal of his cigar ash in the small bronze bowl 
waiting to receive it. Outwardly he presented the serene 
aspect of a portly, middle-aged gentleman whose exist¬ 
ence had so far been as generally satisfactory as the ex¬ 
cellent dinner he had recently consumed. Yet he felt 
ashamed. 

His apparently peaceful life was the battleground of 
two passions; a desire to stand well in the eyes of his 
fellows, and a longing to save money. His vanity and 
his affection for his second wife had nearly always been 
able to defeat his constitutional stinginess; but the mo¬ 
ments when some petty economy made it possible for 
him to avoid the spending of a few pennies were happy 
ones to Blazius Bleecker Hetherington, Sixth. His wife 
never dreamed that he agonized over the bills he paid 
in Spartan silence, nor suspected that the reason his reg¬ 
ular lunch consisted of a glass of buttermilk was not 
exclusively hygienic. 

Honoria Hetherington, to whom having money to 
spend and air to breathe were about equally matters of 
course, took her husband’s remark at its face value. 

“What a wonderfully considerate and understanding 
person you are, Bleecker! After Lynneth’s been in New 
York a little while she’ll get over all these childish ideas 
of hers about being independent and earning her own 
living, and realize that that sort of thing simply won’t 
do.” 

“Quite so; quite so,” Mr. Hetherington answered a 
little hastily. “But what will Valerie say?” 

The beauty of this younger daughter, sole offspring of 
his second matrimonial venture, often seemed to him 


WASHINGTON SQUARE, NORTH 


9 


conclusive proof that Providence fully understood what 
was righteously due to a Bleecker Hetherington. 

His wife’s slightly prominent, china-blue eyes met his 
complacently. 

“Valerie?” she repeated. “Oh, Valerie won’t mind! 
It will be nice for her to have a companion. She wouldn’t 
admit it for the world—you know how she is!—but I’m 
sure she’ll miss Lisa sadly.” 

Mr. Hetherington made no answer. They had been 
married nearly a quarter of a century, but there were 
still times when he, though not a particularly discerning 
person, was almost dumbfounded by his wife’s extraor¬ 
dinary talent for remaining completely and honestly blind 
to whatever it would, or might, be disagreeable for her 
to perceive. That sisters, even half-sisters, invariably 
loved each other was a part of the code of conventions 
she accepted without question. She would not have 
worn a ready-made glove; but ready-made opinions save 
so much trouble! 

“Lynneth had better come to us next week,” she flowed 
on blandly. “That will give me time to get her a few 
things before the rush begins; I don’t suppose she has 
anything fit to wear. Then during December I’ll have 
a luncheon or two, and introduce her formally—unless 
Valerie’d prefer a tea dance.” 

Mr. Hetherington winced. A usually considerate 
destiny had certainly played him the shabbiest of tricks 
in permitting Paul Frear to die and leave an all but 
penniless young daughter, of whom it was necessary— 
and so obtrusively necessary!—that some one should take 
care. If only this inconvenient and probably expensive 
Lynneth had some half suitable place to go to—or any 
place at all, for that matter, except No. — Washington 
Square, North! 


CHAPTER SECOND 


Slipping hastily out of bed, Lynneth pattered across 
the floor on little bare feet and drew up the dark blind 
which shaded the tall, old-fashioned window. Her first 
morning in New York, her first daylight glimpse of the 
Enchanted City—! She thrilled at the thought. 

A perfectly unexciting prospect of staid backyards 
wherein a marauding grey cat was the sole adventurer 
somewhat chilled her enthusiasm, and she returned to her 
small warm hollow beneath the blankets, piling up the 
pillows behind her so that she might more easily look 
about the pretty room, with its creamy walls and daffodil- 
flowered chintzes, which for a little while was all her 
very own. 

But only for a little while, she sternly reminded her¬ 
self. She wasn’t going to be dependent on any one! 
Though there was no reason why she shouldn’t spend a 
month or so with this kindly Aunt Honoria of hers, here 
in Washington Square, especially when Aunt Honoria 
needed her help with the arrangements for Lisa’s wed¬ 
ding. She sighed involuntarily. Somehow, excursions 
into the business world seemed less alluring now, than 
when viewed from the isolated little village among the 
bleak New England hills. The opulent luxury of this 
aristocratic old house, so stately and quiet and peace¬ 
ful— 

Peaceful ? 

She snuggled her slim little shoulders further down 
into the lavender-scented pillows, as if trying to retreat 
from the memory which pestered her like an insistent 
mosquito. She wouldn’t pay a scrap of attention to it. 
Ten chances to one it was only fancy, anyway. Her 

10 



WASHINGTON SQUARE, NORTH 


II 


imagination, excited by novelty, had been playing pranks. 

And how new to her it all was, from the drive down 
glistening, rain-swept Fifth Avenue in the Rolls-Royce 
limousine to this awakening between monogram-em¬ 
broidered linen sheets! As far back as she could re¬ 
member she had lived in the barren and forbidding 
house to which her father retreated when his injured 
spine rendered him incapable of continuing those explo¬ 
rations among Egyptian ruins which were the centre of 
all his ambitions. The commentaries on Aeschylus which 
brought praise from scholars all over the world seemed 
to him a poor substitute for his chosen work—almost 
as poor a substitute as the daughter he tolerated was for 
the wife he had devotedly loved, and to whose memory 
he was completely faithful. 

Lynneth’s only other associates had been the Misses 
Quincy, a pair of ex-schoolmistresses to whose unsophis¬ 
ticated minds New York was a veritable sink of iniquity, 
compared with which Sodom was chaste and Gomorrah 
absolutely Puritanical. They had done their conscien¬ 
tious best to instil this belief into Lynneth, thereby rous¬ 
ing her curiosity and making her feel that in going to 
Washington Square she was beginning a wonderful ad¬ 
venture, deliciously spiced with all sorts of mysterious 
dangers. 

Memory of her one short interview with Mrs. Heth- 
erington did not, it is true, recall anything noticeably 
exciting about that serene and substantial matron; but 
Lynneth’s was a hopeful nature. She had only the most 
nebulous idea of what she might expect to find in New 
York, but it was something romantic and glamorous and 
enthralling, something quite, quite different from the 
deadly dull routine which was all she had ever known. 
Terrible, perhaps; but certainly neither monotonous nor 
sordid, and if evil, then of a splendid sulphurous wicked¬ 
ness appropriate to defiant Lucifer, once Son of the 
Morning. 


n 


LOVE AND LIFE 


She pushed the dense shadowy masses of soft dark 
hair back from her low forehead and the small pale 
face which often seemed to be all big grey eyes, eyes 
eager with the grave and earnest eagerness of an enquir¬ 
ing child, full of the unconscious pathos of youth robbed 
of its playtime. Her arrival the night before, the five 
people she had met at the dinner she was too excited 
to eat—she tried to sort out her impressions of these 
with the impatient haste of an intuitive, impetuous mind 
drilled to methodical habits. She did not realize how 
artificial these habits were, nor that her craving for 
change and excitement was but a very simple hunger for 
the love and joy her youth had so far been denied. She 
had been constrained to plod when her instinct was to 
dance. 

A tap on the door and her automatic “Come in !” were 
immediately followed by the entrance of Parkins, the 
severely competent maid who immediately after her ar¬ 
rival had taken autocratic possession of her keys, unpack¬ 
ing her meagre belongings and stowing them away with 
intimidating swiftness and precision. 

“Miss Valerie told me to see if you was awake, Miss. 
An’ to ask if you’d have breakfast with her in the sittin’ 
room in fifteen minutes/’ 

In an entirely respectful manner, the maid managed 
to convey the impression that a request from Miss Val¬ 
erie was a royal command. Also that she, Parkins, re¬ 
garded the newcomer as an intruder and a worm. 

“Please tell her I’ll be there,” replied Lynneth with 
dignity. 

“Very good, Miss. I’ll close the windows and draw 
your bath first, Miss.” 

Here was luxury for you! No getting up in a cold 
room and shivering through the length of an unheated 
hall to the bathroom, faintly hoping the water might be 
at least lukewarm—which it never was! Through the 
now open door she could see the snowy porcelain tub 


WASHINGTON SQUARE, NORTH 


13 


with the shower above it, the glittering silver racks hold¬ 
ing sponge and delicately-scented French soap and huge 
soft fuzzy Turkish towels. Her outing-flannel kimono, 
thickened and faded with many washings, and the shape¬ 
less slippers Miss Hannah Quincy had crocheted for her 
last Christmas looked startlingly out of place in these 
surroundings. But they seemed still more out of place 
when, fresh and fragrant from the bath into which she 
had breathlessly ventured to put some of the fascinat¬ 
ingly tinted bath-salts she had found ready in a big glass 
jar, and with her dark hair hanging in two thick braids, 
she entered the little sitting room she had been told she 
was to share with Valerie. She would have liked to put 
on her dress and do up her hair, but the fifteen minutes 
were over, and she had been taught that to be late was 
to be ill-bred. 

The room was empty. A wood fire crackled blithely 
on the hearth, and before it stood a small table, laid for 
two. On the mantelshelf a French gilt clock ticked en¬ 
ergetically. 

Its mercury-weighted pendulum swung back and forth, 
back and forth. No Valerie. Back and forth, back and 
forth. Still no Valerie. Five, ten, fifteen minutes 
passed. . . . 

Lynneth was wondering whether she could have mis¬ 
taken the room when a door opened. And then she 
caught her breath, just as she had caught her breath the 
previous evening, when for the first time she saw that 
dazzling, white-and-gold vision which was Valerie van 
Sturtevant Hetherington. 

Her admiration was undisguised, and Valerie smiled, 
well pleased. This dainty little cousin was evidently 
ready to think her perfect, and it is always agreeable and 
frequently useful to be thought perfect. Appreciatively 
conscious of her own unrivalled loveliness, she sauntered 
across the room, and putting one rosy-tipped finger under 


14 


LOVE AND LIFE 


Lynneth’s chin turned up the wistfully eager little face 
and lightly kissed the parted lips. 

“I foresee,” she declared playfully, “I foresee we’re 
going to be great friends, you and I!” 

She made no apology for her tardiness, nor did it occur 
to Lynneth to expect one. 

“Oh, I do hope we are!” she exclaimed eagerly, flush¬ 
ing a little in her earnestness. 

She looked at Valerie with admiring eyes. Lavishly 
over-paying a bit of kindness whose cost she never 
thought of reckoning, she was ready to do anything that 
might please the wonderful being who bestowed it. She 
had known only the tepid affection of the Misses Quincy, 
and her father’s impatient acceptance of her as, on the 
whole, a convenience. And while it may be quite pos¬ 
sible to do good to those who persecute you, it is, to say 
the least, extremely difficult to love those who tolerate 
you. 

Valerie smiled charmingly. “I was sure of it last 
night, the minute I came into the room!” Slipping a 
smooth round arm about Lynneth’s shoulders, she turned 
to the maid. “Everything ready, Parkins? Very well; 
that’s all now. I’ll ring when I want you. We’ll have a 
nice cosy time, just by ourselves,” she added as the maid 
left the room, and without waiting for a reply, went on; 
“I knew you were a perfect dear, as soon as I looked at 
you. Honestly now, what did you think of me?” 

“I thought you were the most beautiful thing-” 

Lynneth broke off abruptly, blushing at her own im¬ 
petuous frankness. 

Valerie smiled again. No doubting the sincerity of 
that exclamation! Yet she asked with calculated curi¬ 
osity ; “And what else? You saw and thought something 
else, I’m sure. What was it?” 

Lynneth hesitated, a touch of dismay shadowing her 
expressive face. Valerie, slowly sipping orange-juice 
strained and chilled to precisely the right temperature. 



WASHINGTON SQUARE, NORTH 


15 


watched her with guileless-seeming, madonna-blue eyes, 
and saw the shadow deepen. 

For Lynneth knew what Valerie meant, and she hadn’t 
expected anything like this—a crisis in its own small 
way. Her almost cloistered life had denied her the social 
training which makes dexterous avoidance of such minor 
crises nearly instinctive. Yet how admit what she had, 
not so much thought as felt at that instant when, already 
seated at the oblong table in the great dining room, fac¬ 
ing Lisa and Lisa’s fiance, Philip Armytage, she had 
witnessed Valerie’s belated entrance and then, turning 
suddenly, caught the look in the elder sister’s eyes ? 

It was the memory of that glance which had made her 
hesitate to call the fine old house “peaceful.” 

Had the only partly understood impression, an im¬ 
pression registered more on her nerves than on her brain, 
been a little less profound, she would quickly have dis¬ 
covered some euphuism to cover her thoughts. But the 
look in Lisa’s eyes had been as startling as the abrupt 
unveiling of something malignant and festering, some¬ 
thing whose very existence was a threat. 

“What else could I have been thinking?” she replied; 
and knew that her brief pause had betrayed her. 

Valerie put aside her empty glass. She too paused a 
moment. Her blue eyes had a Greuze-like innocence; 
“I wasn’t sure you’d seen—or would understand if you 
did see.” 

“Whether I’d seen? And understood?” Lynneth’s 
question was very nearly a demand. To her impatient 
young frankness this dialogue of indirect reply and veiled 
suggestion was both alien and irksome. She wanted 
Valerie either to leave the matter alone, or to put into 
words what she still faintly hoped she had misunder¬ 
stood. 

Valerie’s glance was half-appraising, half-amused. She 
turned the tiny ivory spigot of the Queen Anne coffee 
urn, and as the clear brown stream flowed smoothly into 


16 


LOVE AND LIFE 


the old Chinese porcelain cups, replied with a casualness 
which seemed to deny her words; “The sad and simple 
fact that Lisa hates me/' 

For the moment she left it there. “One lump, or 
two?” she asked pleasantly. 

“Two, please.” 

“You’re not shocked at my admitting it, are you? 
You’d be sure to find out before long, living in the 
house. She really does hate me, you know; and after 
all, why shouldn’t she? I’ve always put her in the shade, 
ever since we were little mites of children. Of course, 
it's not my fault. I can’t help it if I’m—well, rather 
better-looking than she is! But I don’t blame her one 
scrap, and I’d be friends with her if she’d let me. After 
all, if I’m prettier, she’s got a big income of her own, 
and I haven’t a penny. Her mother left her lots of 
money.” 

“Her mother?” the surprised Lynneth repeated. 

“Why, yes. Didn’t you know my father married 
twice? Lisa’s mother died when she was born, and a 
year or so later he married my mother. I’m only about 
two years younger than Lisa. Of course,” she added 
smilingly, “if father hadn’t married again, Lisa’d have 
been mistress of his house, and inherited all he’s got, 
and I wouldn’t have been here to interfere with her. 
Honestly, I don’t wonder she hates me! I guess I’d feel 
as she does if I were in her place, though I’d never do 
what she’s going to. Don’t you think it’s awfully fool¬ 
ish?” 

“Think what’s foolish?” 

“For her to marry Phil Armytage.” 

“I don’t know anything about it. Why do you call it 
foolish?” Lynneth’s reply was instinctively defensive. 

But it was not so much Lisa as her own dreams of 
romance that she defended. A betrothal was to her the 
key to an enchanted garden. . . . 

Valerie’s deprecating gesture was grace itself. “Oh, 


WASHINGTON SQUARE, NORTH 


17 


my dear!” she exclaimed. “You don’t mean to say— 
honestly, haven’t you noticed? He’s not one bit in love 
with her.” 

“Then why-?” 

“The usual reason! He hasn’t a cent, and Lisa’s a 
great catch. That’s why.” 

“How perfectly disgusting!” flashed Lynneth indig¬ 
nantly. 

Again Valerie smiled. “Oh, well—! It’s give and 
take. Lots of people marry without caring much about 
each other, and get along all right. If Phil wasn’t— 
wasn’t Phil, it might be safe enough. Don’t you think 
he’s awfully good-looking ?” 

“Ye-es. In a way. But— Does Lisa know? If 
she cares-” 

“// she cares ! But does she ? I doubt it!—Have an¬ 
other muffin, won’t you?—You see, he’s a great flirt, and 
awfully popular. Lots of girls are wild about him, and, 
of course, it’s always fun to get hold of a man other 
girls want. Besides, Lisa’s crazy to leave home, and 
have her own establishment, and do as she likes. Of 
course, she could quit now, but that would mean a dread¬ 
ful row with father, and if he got angry enough, he 
might cut her out of his will. Father and mother are 
dreadfully old-fashioned and awfully fussy about what 
we do and where we go, and I don’t know how much 
all that counts with Lisa. . . . Wonder if I could find 
out? It might be fun to try!” 

Lynneth was too inexperienced to form any precise 
idea of the methods Valerie might use in such an attempt, 
but intuition told her that the attempt itself would be 
a summons to disaster. 

“Couldn’t your mother do something ?” she asked, feel¬ 
ing as if she had been hurried into a drama’s second act 
without having learned anything about her part, and a 
good deal excited by the hint of coming complications. 

“Mother? Why, she’s convinced that Lisa and I are 




18 


LOVE AND LIFE 


devoted sisters, and Phil an adoring lover! She’d be 
perfectly miserable if she suspected a quarter of what 
I’ve told you. That’s one reason why I did tell you— 
so you shouldn’t say anything to upset her,” concluded 
Valerie, pleased by this idea of an affectionate consider¬ 
ation for her mother’s feelings which had just occurred 
to her. That other self which is in all of us, the self 
that sits apart, was applauding her conduct of this seem¬ 
ingly unimportant interview. 

Lynneth nodded gravely. Nearly twenty years of al¬ 
most steady repression had made her a rather silent 
person. 

Valerie rose and stood a moment, idly playing a tattoo 
on the back of her chair with a pair of slender, shapely 
hands. Her flawless, milk-and-roses complexion and hair 
which had the softness and colour of ripe corn-silk could 
brave the sunlight now flooding the room. A more ex¬ 
perienced observer might have seen defects in that al¬ 
luring face, might have thought the rosy mouth self- 
indulgent, the blue eyes hard beneath their apparent soft¬ 
ness; but to Lynneth it was perfect. Beautiful, charm¬ 
ing, lovely and lovable, Valerie seemed to her all that 
she herself would have liked to be. 

And this adorable princess talked of being “great 
friends” with her! 

“I was sure you’d understand,” Valerie said, slowly 
and not too definitely. “You see, Lynnie dear, no one 
can be both my friend, and Lisa’s. It’s a pity, but—oh 
well, there it is! And I want you for mine.” 

Lynneth’s grey eyes, that looked so dark with their 
black-pencilled irids and long, thickly curling lashes, were 
shining now. 

“I’m glad,” she said quietly. 

She too had risen and stood, a shabby, rather quaint 
little figure in the old washed-out kimono, her soft wavy 
hair parted over the broad white forehead where the 
dark eyebrows made a clear, delicately curved line above 


WASHINGTON SQUARE, NORTH 


19 


the steady eyes. Lashes and brows emphasized the 
pallour she owed to a youth spent tethered to the desk 
where she tried to satisfy the exactions of an irritable 
invalid. 

Valerie looked down, smilingly, into the sensitive, up¬ 
turned face. Suddenly, with a movement really beautiful 
in its long-limbed grace, she swept the younger girl into 
her arms, and kissed her lightly. It meant nothing to 
her, that swift embrace; but it meant a great deal to 
Lynneth. 

“There!” Valerie exclaimed with a little laugh, and 
glancing at the clock, added; “Now I must dress—I’m 
going to ride in the Park. Wish you were coming with 
me! Oh, by the way, mother said to tell you she’d like 
you to be ready to go out with her at half-past ten. All 
right, Parkins! I’m coming!” 


CHAPTER THIRD 


A breathless scramble enabled Lynneth to be ready 
at the designated hour. Endowed with the magic knack 
some few thrice-blessed women possess, she could dress 
in a whirlwind and look as if she had done it amid per¬ 
fect calm. 

This time she was not kept waiting. Mrs. Hethering- 
ton approved her punctuality, and remarked upon it 
graciously. 

“It may be an old-fashioned virtue, my dear, but a lady 
is always considerate, and I’ve taught my girls never to 
be late for any engagement, no matter how trivial.” She 
settled herself in the tan-upholstered limousine, gave 
the footman an adaress, and went serenely on; “I thought 
we’d do a little shopping this morning, and get you a 
few of the things you need most. You must have a 
tailored suit, and a couple of little frocks, and some hats, 
and one or two evening gowns at once. Later we can 
attend to the rest.” 

Lynneth caught her breath. Never in her life had she 
had more than one new garment at a time—.and the times 
had been few, and very far between. The prospect of 
a whole new wardrobe, all at once, was dizzying. Then 
she remembered: 

“But, Aunt Honoria, I can’t possibly afford-” 

Mrs. Hetherington would not allow her to finish. “My 
dear, you must let me have my way. I was—er—very 
fond of your father, and I’d like to do something for 
you. Besides, those stocks he left you may prove valu¬ 
able after all; one never knows what the market will 
do !” Her placid glance wandered slowly over Lynneth’s 
plain little hat, shabby coat, and skirt which had been 

20 



WASHINGTON SQUARE, NORTH 


21 


laboriously, and not very successfully dyed at home in 
the washboiler. “You can’t go through a New York 
winter without suitable clothing.” 

“But, Aunt Honoria, it’s only for such a very little 
while! I’ll have to find some sort of work-” 

“Oh, well—! Some day, perhaps. There’s plenty 
of time for that.” Mrs. Hetherington dismissed the sub¬ 
ject in a way which made Lynneth feel as if she had been 
somehow indelicate. “I’ve arranged for you to take a 
few dancing lessons. You must learn the new steps. I 
don’t want my niece”—the excellent matron was unaware 
of her slight emphasis on the possessive pronoun—“I 
don’t want my niece to be a wall-flower.” 

Lynneth caught most of the implications of this speech. 
Ignorant of the details of the long estrangement be¬ 
tween her father and his step-sister, she yet did not alto¬ 
gether miss the faint suggestion of Mrs. Hetherington’s 
—not quite remorse, but rather mental discomfort. And 
she perfectly comprehended her determination that her 
niece should not be any discredit to her. 

She glanced thoughtfully at the older woman; the 
second wife. Did she, she wondered, often think of that 
other, whose place she held? Was she ever aware that 
her husband was comparing her with that other? Or 
had he forgotten the dead? But how could he forget, 
while Lisa was there—Lisa, who hated Valerie, hated the 
daughter of the woman who had taken her mother’s 
place, and in some measure, her own! 

The big car rolled smoothly along lower Fifth Avenue, 
past the few blocks of old-fashioned residences and tall 
modern apartment houses, the clanging, glittering cheap¬ 
ness of Fourteenth Street, and the wholesale establish¬ 
ments which of late years have so changed the character 
of Broadway, as well as Fifth Avenue, between Four¬ 
teenth and Thirty-fourth Streets. They left the wedge- 
shaped Flatiron Building—at which Lynneth stared with 
eager curiosity—far behind, and came at last to where 



22 


LOVE AND LIFE 


a famous hotel and no less famous department store 
mark the beginning of one of the greatest shopping dis¬ 
tricts in the world. 

Everything she saw fascinated Lynneth; the crowds 
which made her suppose there must be a parade or some¬ 
thing special going on until Mrs. Hetherington assured 
her to the contrary; the splendid shops with their be¬ 
wildering allurements of jewels and flowers and bon¬ 
bons, of sumptuous furs and lustrous fabrics, gathered 
from Asia and from France, from Africa and from 
Alaska. It was thrilling! More wonderful even than 
her imaginings! 

She was almost sorry when they turned down a side 
street in the upper Forties, and stopped in front of what 
she took to be a large private house, with a single name 
cut deep in the stone lintel over the door. It was a 
surprise to discover that this was a ladies’ tailoring es¬ 
tablishment. Conducted into a small cubicle, she was 
asked to take off her coat while a jerky little man with 
a tiny, very black moustache did mysterious things with 
a tape measure, murmuring the results to an assistant. 
Then she must consult with her aunt over styles and 
materials—which meant assenting to Mrs. Hetherington’s 
selection of a tobacco-brown tweed, to be made with rigid 
plainness, a choice the little man accepted with an air 
of profound respect. 

After the tailor, the dressmaker. Rainbow-hued gowns 
that were fascinating marvels of crispness, or fluffiness, 
or softly flowing drapery were displayed on living models 
who moved over the pale grey velvet carpet with an air 
of languid sophistication which made Lynneth feel ap¬ 
pallingly young and crude. Mrs. Hetherington and the 
suave, swarthy-browed madame who was the ruling spirit 
of the place discussed the merits of each confection, 
madame at last declaring that she understood what was 
desired: 


WASHINGTON SQUARE, NORTH 


23 


“Parfaltement! A gown of youth, d’une simplicity 
exquise. Your petite niece, madame, -ah, but she is truly 
jeune fille! You do not have la jeune fille here in your 
so wonderful Amerique! Behold! For her I shall create 
ze costume ravissante! It shall be white, gentille, fraiche 
comme une fleur -!” 

“Yes, for her debut. But she must have something at 
once. Now that shell-pink tulle—if you filled in the 
decolletage a little ?” 

The shell-pink tulle was bought—for the trifling sum 
of $175—also a crisp, grey-blue taffeta, trimmed with 
tiny roses, in which mademoiselle was pronounced 
“Charmante!” 

The question of an evening wrap was next considered, 
and when Lynneth shyly admitted her preference for a 
very simple one of silky white fur, madame applauded 
her so excellent taste! Fur is expensive; so is simplicity; 
the cost of the two combined would have stupefied Lyn¬ 
neth had she known it. Two hats, an old-rose crepe de 
Chine afternoon gown, and four blouses to be worn with 
the tailored suit were enough for the present, Mrs. Heth- 
erington said. Unless madame had some plain little 
frock mademoiselle could put on immediately? 

Madame had; and when Lynneth emerged from the 
dressing-room in the smartest and simplest of dark blue 
tricotine utility gowns, with a small hat to match, equally 
simple and equally smart, Mrs. Hetherington smiled her 
approval. The discarded clothing packed up and stowed 
away in the limousine, she glanced at her wrist-watch: 

“It’s nearly half-past one, my dear, and I’m sure you 
must be hungry. We’ll go to the Plaza for lunch.” 

Feeling as if she had stepped into a fairy tale, and 
stealing shy, delighted glances at her transformed self 
whenever they passed a mirror, Lynneth followed her 
aunt into the hotel. The dining room was crowded, but 
the headwaiter contrived, as headwaiters somehow al- 



24 


LOVE AND LIFE 


ways did contrive, to find a table for Mrs. Blazius 
Bleecker Hetherington, and Lynneth was soon busy with 
her first restaurant meal. 

She was hungry, and the unfamiliar food delicious. 
Having a healthy young liking for good things to eat, 
she enjoyed it heartily; but enjoyed still more the novelty 
of her surroundings. She watched the other women, 
simply, superbly or astonishingly gowned, wondered at 
some of the fragments of conversation that reached her 
during an occasional lull in the music, and absorbed the 
matter-of-course extravagance, the bland, ultra-sophisti¬ 
cated luxuriousness of it all at every unaccustomed pore. 
The room seemed to her palatial, the music extraordi¬ 
nary, the women too marvelous to be real. Their furs 
and jewels, their general air of daintily expensive Epi¬ 
cureanism, fascinated her as much as did their frank use 
of powder pad and lip-stick. She had read about such 
things; she had never seen them until now. 

After luncheon was over Mrs. Hetherington, still con¬ 
scientiously doing her duty, took her for a short motor 
run up Fifth Avenue and through Central Park, return¬ 
ing by way of Riverside Drive. As conscientiously she 
replied to Lynneth’s shyly eager questions, though her 
answers were sometimes rather unsatisfactory. When 
the girl asked, for instance, who lived in the huge apart¬ 
ment houses towering along the river-front, her reply 
was a brief: “People nobody knows, my dear.” 

That recalled the Misses Quincy’s remarks about New 
York, as well as certain fragments of Lynneth’s desul¬ 
tory reading, which had included every book she could 
manage to get her hands on. Were all those dreadfully 
wicked creatures congregated together along the line of 
the river? The presence of many baby carriages and 
innumerable small children did give the Drive a factitious 
air of innocence, but then, as Lynneth sagely reflected, 
babies might occur even in the worst-regulated house¬ 
holds ! 


WASHINGTON SQUARE, NORTH 


25 


Though fast-crowding impressions were bewildering 
her a little, she was sorry when Mrs. Hetherington said: 

“We must go home now, my dear. I always make a 
point of being at home on Fridays after half-past four. 
Lisa and Valerie stay in when they can, but the people 
who come are mostly my friends. Perhaps you’ll help 
me with the tea? It’s all very informal.” 

So at half-past four Lynneth ran lightly down stairs, 
dressed in the pretty new rose-coloured gown which 
made her eyes look very clear and dark. In the hall 
she met the butler, a benign person whose mien of a 
retired Archbishop made him a valuable acquisition to 
any establishment. 

“Is Mrs. Hetherington in the drawing-room, Wilbur?” 

“I think not, Miss. But I’m sure she’ll be there im- 
mejately.” 

He drew back one of the heavy portieres, and Lynneth 
entered the great room. Like so many of its contempo¬ 
raries, No. — Washington Square had been built with 
both a back and a front drawing-room. The throwing 
of these two into one at the time of Lisa’s debut had 
been among the few alterations made by its present 
owners. 

On the cream-pannelled walls the place of honour was 
held by a fine Sir Peter Lely portrait of that young 
Richard Hetherington who had given his life for an un¬ 
worthy King at the battle of Marston Moor. From the 
ceilings depended the two beautiful old chandeliers of 
tinkling, prismatic glass which had hung there ever since 
the house was built; the furniture, highly polished and 
upholstered in antique silken tapestry, belonged to a yet 
earlier period. It was a fine old room, stately in its pro¬ 
portions, harmonious in its fittings. It greeted you cere¬ 
moniously, as with the tips of its fingers. Even the fires 
burning in the grates under the high, carved stone mantel¬ 
pieces at either end could not make it warmly welcoming. 

Mrs. Hetherington soon appeared, and a moment later 


26 


LOVE AND LIFE 


Wilbur ushered in two ladies, the one old and autocratic, 
the other middle-aged and subdued. Lynneth had lisen 
at their entrance and remained standing until she was 
presented to them, with the explanation: 

“My step-brother Paul was .a great scholar, you know, 
dear Mrs. van Cortlandt. He loved the country, and 
this is the first time Lynneth has been to New York.” 

Mrs. van Cortlandt raised a long-handled, gold- 
mounted eye-glass. “How very fortunate for her! New 
York is no place in which to bring up a young girl now¬ 
adays. It was different when I was young. Then you 
knew every one, who they were and all about them. In 
these times, it is quite impossible to tell what sort of 
person you may meet.” 

Mrs. Hetherington shook her head in placid sympathy. 
“I’ve often heard my dear mother say that in her young 
days you knew every one who kept a carriage. Then 
the riff-raff confined themselves to politics and things 
like that, but now you meet their sons and daughters in 
the very best houses.” 

“I remember when my father thought of building just 
above Forty-second Street—” Mrs. van Cortlandt 
began, only to be interrupted by the arrival of two 
matrons whose sables should have commanded respect 
anywhere. But Lynneth noticed that Mrs. van Cortlandt 
spoke to them very coldly, and that even her elderly 
daughter, whose clothes seemed to bear no relation to any 
of the prevailing fashions, treated them with frosty 
politeness. The van Cortlandt code, as Lynneth later 
discovered, still demanded disapproval of those renegades 
who allied themselves with mushroom millionaires. 

The first arrivals departed, other guests came, and the 
pontifical butler and scarcely less impressive footman 
were kept busy passing sandwiches and tiny cakes. The 
last of these visitors were leaving when Valerie entered. 
Phil Armytage was with her. 

“I lunched with Lily Gresham and we went on to the 


WASHINGTON SQUARE, NORTH 


27 


Skating Club/’ she explained. “Phil was there, and I 
made him come back to tea.” 

“Quite right, darling. Lynneth, will you pour for 
a while? I want to show Mrs. Vance and Mrs. Cathcart 
the miniatures in the library.” 

Lynneth obeyed. Phil and Valerie went to the fire¬ 
place at the other end of the room and stood together, 
stretching their hands to the blaze and talking in an 
undertone interspersed with laughter. From her post 
behind the tea table Lynneth surveyed the pair, and 
decided that she didn’t like Mr. Armytage. He was 
handsome; dark-haired, slimly built, foreign-looking. 
Too handsome for a man, she thought—and smiled to 
herself, admitting her prejudice. 

Valerie and he seemed to have a good deal to say to 
each other. Evidently they didn’t want to be interrupted! 
A look of mirthful resignation passed between them 
when the portiere was again pushed aside and Lisa came 
in, followed by two men, one young, the other middle- 
aged. 

Their resemblance to each other made more cruel the 
contrast between the half-sisters. Lisa’s fair hair would 
not have looked so drab and lustreless had Valerie’s been 
dark instead of a rippling golden yellow; the modeling 
of her face would not have seemed so crude, had its 
outlines been less like a badly drawn sketch of Valerie’s. 
Eut their eyes were absolutely different; Valerie’s large, 
madonna-blue, Lisa’s narrow, somewhat slanting, of a 
pale tint neither grey nor yellow, but wholly neutral. 
And yet they were very keen. They brought a word into 
Lynneth’s mind; the word “snatch.” 

Lisa paused a moment, smiling at the couple standing 
in front of the fire; her smile was acrid. 

“I’m so glad you two have made friends at last,” she 
said. Her voice was thin, metallic, without depth or 
resonance. “You know, Mr. Lawrence, my sister and 
Mr. Armytage are rival beauties. They’re both too fond 


28 


LOVE AND LIFE 


of flattery to be willing to give it, so how could you 
expect them to like each other ?” 

Without waiting for an answer she went to a chair, 
sat down, and began to peel off her long suede gloves. 
A suggestion of cruelty entered somehow into the com¬ 
monplace action. The younger man who had come in 
with her she ignored as coolly as she did Lynneth. 

“Don’t let your raptures spoil your manners, Lisa 
dear,” Valerie retorted. “You haven’t introduced Lyn¬ 
neth to Mr. Lawrence or Mr.—er ?” 

“Calhoun—Danvers Calhoun,” responded the younger 
man, trying to appear at ease and failing noticeably. 

“Thanks! Lynneth, Mr. Lawrence and Mr. Calhoun. 
My cousin, Miss Frear. Here’s the tea. Now, Lynnie 
darling, if you’ll make yourself useful until mother 
comes ?” 

Four of the little party assembled at one end of the 
long room were grateful for Valerie’s intervention. 
Armytage, Lawrence and Calhoun, differing in most 
ways, shared the general masculine dread of “a scene.” 
They were more relieved even than Lynneth, who held, 
or thought she held, in Valerie’s explanation at break¬ 
fast the key to Lisa’s behaviour. And again she felt as 
if she had been pushed into the middle of a drama. 

Mrs. Hetherington reappeared, placid and smiling. 
Resuming her place behind the tea tray: 

“We’ve had a very busy day, Lynneth and I,” she 
remarked with the air of one to whom others’ interest 
in her affairs was a matter of course: “We shopped all 
morning, and then took a little turn through the Park 
and down by the river. I think Riverside Drive is so 
pleasant at this time of the year. Don’t you, Mr. Cal¬ 
houn ?” 

“Yes, indeed. I wish I could get there more often. 
I’m always meaning to go. I scarcely know the district 
at all,” Calhoun answered, conveniently forgetting that 
when first he came to New York he had boarded in a 



WASHINGTON SQUARE, NORTH 


29 


house in the West Nineties. He spoke with that slight 
flatness of enunciation, that use of “wich” and “wat” 
in place of ‘‘which” and “what” which is an almost ine¬ 
radicable trace of early training—or lack of training. 

“How it has changed, though! I remember when it 
was mostly vacant lots. Some people talked about its 
becoming a great residence section, but somehow scarcely 
any one has ever been willing to live there. What was 
it Joan Hilary said about that part of town, Valerie? 
Do you remember?” 

“You mean her saying that Kipling proved how well 
he knew New York when he wrote: ‘Oh, East is East, 
and West is West, and never the twain shall meet?’ ” 

“Yes, that’s it. So clever of her! They never do, 
you know.” 

“By the way, I met Miss Hilary last night, at the 
opera,” Ashby Lawrence remarked, dexterously balanc¬ 
ing a sandwich on the edge of his saucer. He had been 
one of the half-dozen famous cotillon leaders in the days 
when to be a famous cotillon leader was to be a per¬ 
sonage, and was still among the most sought-after men 
in New York. Rich, unmarried, of a distinguished 
family, his savoir faire was all but proverbial. As was 
his discretion. “What do you think of this new scheme 
of hers?” he added presently. 

“What scheme?” Armytage asked. “I heard she w.as 
awfully hard hit a while ago in the Trans-Continental 
Trust smash-up.” 

“Yes. And then some kind friend or other persuaded 
her to play the market. She got in, but she couldn’t get 
out.” Lawrence summed up the situation succinctly. 

“They say Miss Cordelia De Witt wanted Joan to come 
to her as companion. Such a pity she hasn’t married! 
She must be—let me see—she was about eight years old 
w hen—she must be over thirty!” Mrs. Hetherington 
sighed. “It’s a very great pity! Won’t you let me give 
you some tea, Mr. Calhoun? You know Constance Hil- 


30 


LOVE AND LIFE 


ary, Joan’s mother, was a Miss Bleecker, and a second 
cousin of my husband’s, so though Joan has always been 
a trifle—er—odd, we take an interest in-” 

“Miss Hilary,” announced the butler. 

Pausing a moment to glance around her with the bright 
hazel eyes which, despite the tortoise-shell eye-glasses 
now dangling from her neck on a wide black ribbon, 
made Lynneth think of those of an observant squirrel, 
Joan Hilary stood in the doorway, surveying the group 
before her with an amusement she did not in the least 
try to conceal. Then carrying her great height with a 
kind of audacious carelessness, she strolled across to Mrs. 
Hetherington. 

“My dear Joan, how delighted I am to see you!” ex¬ 
claimed the estimable matron, for once a trifle dismayed. 
“You’re quite a stranger, you know. I was just say- 

• jy 

ing- 

“Yes; shouldn’t have come in then, I know. Thought 
I’d better break the hideous tidings to you myself, though. 
Hello, Valerie! How are you, Lisa? Recovered from 
the soprano’s shrieking yet, Mr. Lawrence ?” 

Her casual greetings extended to Armytage and Cal¬ 
houn, she glanced at Lynneth. 

“So you’re Paul Frear’s daughter, are you? You look 
as if there might be brains somewhere in your ancestry. 
Come over here and let’s get acquainted,” she added 
imperiously, throwing her long self into a big chair. 

Slouching there in an attitude so careless that only a 
certain inherent fineness, an innate high breeding saved 
it from insolence, she dominated the room. Not one of 
them but noticed her and turned towards her; unwill¬ 
ingly, it might be; yet they turned. Armytage had joined 
Lisa as in duty bound; Calhoun was beside Valerie. 
Ashby Lawrence’s glance travelled leisurely about the 
room, amused and quizzical. Only Lynneth, sitting alone, 
tacitly defied Joan, refusing to move at her bidding. An 
instant the steady grey eyes met those bright hazel ones, 




WASHINGTON SQUARE, NORTH 


31 


not challengingly, but with a kind of summing-up scru¬ 
tiny. And suddenly Joan smiled, and held out her hand. 

“Please!” she said. . . . 

As if in obedience to a given signal, the scattered 
groups fell into talk. Valerie was questioning Ashby 
Lawrence about the collection of small antique weapons 
—dirks and poniards, stilettos and daggers—with which 
he amused his too abundant leisure. 

“Have you anything new that’s particularly interest¬ 
ing?” she presently asked. 

Invitations to inspect his collection, being seldom given, 
were regarded as extremely desirable. 

“Not much. Tressel—Geoffrey Tressel, the aviator; 
you’ve heard of him, haven’t you ? He did some wonder¬ 
ful things during the war—sent me a Syrian dagger a 
month or two ago. It’s a beautiful example of Damascus 
work.” 

“How terribly interesting!” Valerie’s tone was fervent. 
“You know, I think I like those pretty little Italian ones 
best, though. Of course, I haven’t seen the—the new 
one.” 

He smiled. “I’ll know what to send you for a wedding 
present,” he answered pleasantly. But he withheld the 
invitation for which she had been more than hinting, 
and turned again to Mrs. Hetherington as the footman 
appeared with a fresh supply of toasted scones. 

“Will you take cream or lemon, Joan?” Mrs. Hether¬ 
ington never forgot her duty as hostess. 

“Neither, thanks. I’ve had tea. Like a cigarette, 
though. Thanks! Now then, brace yourself and take 
a good long breath. I’m going into trade.” 

“My dear Joan! What do you mean?” 

“What I say. I’m going to open a shop.” 

“A shop!” repeated Mrs. Hetherington faintly. 

“Yes, a shop. Knew you wouldn’t be awfully keen 
on the idea, but there it is. Can’t live on my pedigree! 
'Tisn’t edible. Miss De Witt wanted me to come to her, 


32 


LOVE AND LIFE 


but hanged if I propose to spend the rest of my life 
listening to an old woman’s tales of her past glories and 
dry-nursing her fat poodle.” 

“My dear Joan!” 

“Well, that’s what being a companion usually amounts 
to.” Joan’s irregular nose wrinkled a little as she smiled. 
“Not for me, thanks! Going to start a bookshop.” 

“Oh, what fun!” exclaimed Lynneth eagerly, in¬ 
stantly responsive to the adventurous note which rang 
in Joan’s nervous, slightly husky voice. It made her 
tingle. It was like coming in contact with electricity. 

And afterwards as Joan with detached, mischievous 
amusement went on to explain some of the commercial 
details of her adventure, Lynneth began to wish she could 
talk to her quietly and alone. If only she could ask this 
well-poised, carelessly self-confident Miss Hilary about 
some of the things which puzzled her in this queer ag¬ 
glomeration of people and peoples called New York! 

“Will you let me see you sometime?” she asked as 
Joan was leaving. Her shyness made the request dif¬ 
ficult. 

“Of course! Glad to. Call me up any day. Number’s 
in the book. Don’t forget! I’ll count on hearing from 
you.” 

She had answered cordially, more cordially than she 
did a moment later when Calhoun said: “May I walk 
with you, Miss Hilary? I’m going your way.” 

But if her assent was not particularly gracious, it 
sufficed Calhoun. He was interested in her only as a 
source of information. 

An idea had come to him, suggestive of profit. His 
acquaintance with Lisa Hetherington was of the slight¬ 
est, and it was only by adroit manoeuvring that he had 
contrived to inveigle her into asking him to tea. A keen 
sense of social values made him anxious to acquire a 
footing in the North Washington Square household. 

He had come to New York from a small town in the 


WASHINGTON SQUARE, NORTH 


33 


Southern portion of the Middle West, determined to 
succeed socially as well as financially. Society is willing 
to accept almost any young man who owns a presentable 
appearance and decently cut evening clothes. To these 
essentials, Calhoun added excellent dancing, and an 
astuteness which enabled him to sacrifice present amuse¬ 
ment to future well-being. He won the favour of many 
wall-flowers and the anxious mammas thereof, and found 
it a useful factor in his social progress. He had passed 
from the ranks of the merely wealthy, from the would- 
bes and the never-will-bes, up to the smartest of the 
successful new-rich. But that small conservative group 
to which wealth is a habit and not an acquirement, and 
which still asks about anv newcomer, “Who is he?” 
instead of, “How much has he?” was almost unknown 
to him. It might not be amusing, but it was exclusive, 
and he did not intend to remain among the excluded. 

He had crossed the threshold. He believed he saw 
a way of making himself at home. And the name of it 
was Lynneth Frear. 

“Fine old house, the Hetheringtons’! Isn't it?” he 
remarked as he and Joan descended the steps to the 
street. 

“Yes. Hope they'll be able to keep it a while. Almost 
impossible to stay put, here in New York.” 

Calhoun had an instinct, frequently an asset, some¬ 
times a liability, which led him to play up to what other 
people expected of him. Joan’s tone had given him 
his cue. 

“Pity, isn’t it? Seems as if they enjoyed tearing down 
landmarks and destroying neighbourhoods. The ‘Save 
New York’ people didn’t get busy soon enough.” 

This being one of Joan’s pet grievances, they chatted 
amicably, and before they parted at the door of the 
National Arts Club, where she was dining, she had told 
him what he most wanted to know regarding Miss Frear. 

Here, he said to himself as he left her and returned 


34 


LOVE AND LIFE 


to Fifth Avenue in search of a bus, was a heaven-sent 
opportunity! He was shrewd enough to realize that as 
an unattached young man, ready to cut in at dances and 
fill in at dinners he was useful; but he had none of the 
firmly established connections of those whose roots are 
thrust deep into the social soil. 

Lynneth Frear had no money; the stigma of “ad¬ 
venturer” would not be risked in pursuit of her. Of 
course, the Hetheringtons hoped marriage would take 
her off their hands. He had done well financially, and 
had every prospect of doing better. They would feel 
kindly disposed towards one willing to rid them of a 
poor relation—or whom they supposed to be willing! 

Yes. It would be wise to “rush” Lynneth Frear. The 
affair might end there, or it might not. But to be known 
as the man who was devoted to Mrs. Blazius Bleecker 
Hetherington’s niece could not do him any harm, and 
might do him a great deal of good. What it might do 
to Lynneth did not enter into his calculations. 

He was a young man of single purpose; that single 
purpose, the welfare of Danvers Calhoun. 


CHAPTER FOURTH 


The acquiring of luxurious habits is usually an effort¬ 
less and always a painless process. Lynneth fell quickly 
and easily into the ways and routine of the great house 
on Washington Square—a routine which soon lost much 
of its glamour. To go to and fro in a motor, for instance, 
was at first wholly delightful, but presently began to be 
monotonous. 

In a white mist of tulle and a quiver of excitement 
she had stood beside Mrs. Hetherington at the tea dance 
given for her debut. The first of the succeeding dinners 
and dances and luncheons were exhilarating, but it was 
not long before she found a good deal of sameness about 
such entertainments. The girls and young men she met 
quickly made her aware that she was an outsider, among 
them only on sufferance. With scarcely an exception, 
they had known one another from babyhood; they had 
a fund of common interests and common memories; 
they talked a jargon of their own, full of catch-words 
and allusions which conveyed a great deal to them, and 
nothing at all to Lynneth. 

The things which interested them were unknown to 
her. She had never been to Newport or Palm Beach 
or Tuxedo or Bar Harbor. She knew no more about 
the intimate details of their friends’ lives or of the latest 
scandal, than if she had come straight from the moon. 
And she had no money with which to gamble. 

Her strangeness and her inabilities she held as the 
reasons why she was not popular. The last thing that 
would have occurred to her was the idea of attributing 
any of her social unsuccess to Valerie, who introduced 
men and ostentatiously “looked after” her at dances. 

35 


36 


LOVE AND LIFE 


Impossible for her to know that what Valerie did for 
her before her face was more than undone by what 
Valerie said about her behind her back! Such remarks 
as: “Do be nice to poor Lynnie! Oh, I know she isn’t 

much fun, but then-” repeated a few times, can 

accomplish a very great deal. Lynneth was not average; 
and Valerie was taking no chances. 

It was not as difficult for Lynneth as it might have 
been a year or so later; in this first winter after the 
signing of the armistice, prohibition was only just be¬ 
ginning to make intoxication fashionable. But it was 
difficult enough, and Valerie gave her very plainly to 
understand that only her intervention prevented “dear 
little Lynnie” from finding her position impossible. 

Lynneth believed this to be the truth. It was food 
on which her admiration and gratitude and affection 
for Valerie throve mightily. There was, she thought, 
nothing she would not gladly do for that radiant princess. 
If only she could do something besides acting as ap¬ 
plauding audience, and waiting patiently in the motor 
while Valerie “ran in” to see some friend for a moment 
which usually extended over an hour, or had one of 
the numerous and very lengthy fittings she said it made 
her nervous for any one to watch! If only—but what 
need could Valerie, Queen by right divine of beauty 
and of charm, have of her, who wasn’t and never had 
been of any particular importance? 

Of Lisa she saw comparatively little. And that little 
made her look upon her elder cousin as a person with 
but a single pronounced liking—a taste for erotic fiction. 
Stories of sexual passion, the more intimately detailed 
the better, were the only ones for which she cared. Once 
or twice she attempted to share her pleasure with Lyn¬ 
neth, but to Paul Frear’s daughter, brought up in a 
library which contained De Maupassant and Fielding, 
Theophile Gautier and Anatole France, the novels Lisa 
revelled in seemed merely dull, and self-consciously, 



WASHINGTON SQUARE, NORTH 


37 


laboriously obscene. Their only effect was to increase 
her rapidly developing sense of hidden things going on 
all about her. 

Often she felt as though she were walking through 
a fog, conscious of its existence, aware that it distorted 
all she saw, but unable even to guess what those things 
might be which were visible to her only through the 
refracting mist of her own inexperience. And when, 
as sometimes happened, a flash of light did illuminate the 
darkness, what it showed made her wish for the fog to 
close in on her again. 

One of these flashes came during a dance given by 
a woman who was an intimate friend of Mrs. Hether- 
ington, and the owner of one of the comparatively few 
private ballrooms in New York. A strict censor of what 
went on therein, most of the “debbies” and older girls 
voted her parties stodgy and lacking in “pep”; but she 
was too important a personage to be defied. 

Lynneth had been dancing with Danvers Calhoun. 
Adhering to his plan, he never failed to seek her out, 
wherever they might be. Already Mrs. Hetherington 
had noticed his devotion—the wherefore of his invita¬ 
tion to her friend’s house—and begun to wonder whether 
Lynneth wouldn’t be wise to take him, since there didn’t 
seem to be any immediate prospect of her doing much 
better. 

The fox-trot had just ended when Lily Gresham 
stopped Lynneth. “Oh, Miss Frear, I can’t find Valerie 
anywhere, and I’m in a tearing hurry! Will you ask 
her if she can go to the opera with us tomorrow night 
before the Rodericks’ dance? and tell her to call me up 
and let me know?” 

“Of course I will.” 

“Thanks awfully. ’By!” 

But Valerie was nowhere to be found. She had not 
appeared when the next dance began, nor did she appear 
while it was in progress. Calhoun, who had cut in on 


58 


LOVE AND LIFE 


Jim Saunders was again with Lynneth when, coming 
face to face with Suzanne Romeyne, an impish little 
person and a great chum of Valerie’s, she asked; “Do 
you know where Valerie is, Miss Romeyne? I’ve a 
message I want to give her.” 

Suzanne’s piquant little face sparkled mischievously. 
“Valerie went off in a taxi with Tony Travers. They 
said this party was too slow for them, and they wanted 
some fun. So they’ve gone to the Paris Roof.” 

The fame of the notorious Paris Roof, said “to go 
the limit, and then some,” had long since reached Lyn- 
neth’s ears. A colour like the faint pink of a blush rose 
mounted under her transparent skin, and Calhoun told 
himself that she was really lovely, though in a way only 
a sophisticated taste like his own could appreciate. 

“Don’t look so troubled,” he said consolingly, slipping 
his arm about her as the music began again. “Lots of 
girls run away for a ride or go and have a gay time 
at places like the Paris Roof when their mothers think 
they’re at perfectly proper parties. Your cousin will 
turn up all right. See if she doesn’t.” 

“Aunt Honoria’s so particular-” 

“Well, there it is, you know! Girls want to—well, to 
see life, and most of them are wise to a lot their mothers 
never even dream of. They don’t like to shock the poor 
old dears, so they just hold their tongues and do as 
they please.” 

Lynneth was silent. Calhoun, looking down at her, 
noticed and approved the soft dark sweep of the long 
lashes against the clear whiteness of her skin. It would 
be awfully easy to fall in love with her! Though, of 
course, he didn’t intend to do anything so foolish. 

Nevertheless, there was a loverlike inflection in his 
voice as he said gently; “Don’t bother your little head 
about your cousin. She’s perfectly able to take care 
of herself. Whoever gets into a scrape, you can be sure 
she w^on’t. She’s the kind that slides from under.” 



WASHINGTON SQUARE, NORTH 


39 


He ventured a light, consolatory pressure of her hand. 

Lynneth told herself he meant well, and was very 
kind. But she didn’t care to discuss the matter with 
him. She wasn’t grateful for his attempted reassurance; 
she only felt that she ought to feel grateful. She had 
no impulse to confide in him. She regretted giving him 
even so much confidence as her impulsive allusion to 
Aunt Honoria. 

“I suppose I’m making a mountain out of a mole-hill!” 
Her reply was carefully careless. ‘T haven’t been in 
New York long enough to get into the ways-” 

“No, thank heaven!” he fervently interrupted. “That’s 
part of your charm! You’re so beautifully unlike-” 

At this point Ashby Lawrence cut in on him, to Lyn- 
neth’s relief and somewhat, when he came to think it 
over, to his own satisfaction. The half-said is so often 
the more effective!—as well as the more easily ignored, 
should ignoring prove desirable. He thought of the 
incident again, and with a smile of gratification, as the 
footman helped him on with his overcoat. He meant 
to finish the evening at a supper club with Miss Gwen¬ 
dolyn Fotheringay of the Frivolity Frolics. 

When Valerie reappeared, some time during the small 
hours of the morning, Lynneth gave her Lily’s message, 
and added tentatively: “Suzanne Romeyne said you’d 
gone to the Paris Roof.” 

“Clever girl!” yawned Valerie. 

“Isn’t that rather-•” 

“Oh, shut up, Lynnie! I shan’t love you any more 
if you begin to scold me. Why, damn it all, child, I 
know more about New York and New York men in a 
minute than you’ll ever learn if you live to be a thou¬ 
sand ! See here, you’re not going to turn tattle-tale, are 
you ?” 

“Of course not!” Lynneth exclaimed indignantly. 

“It’s all right, then. You just shut those big eyes of 





40 


LOVE AND LIFE 


yours up tight, and you won’t see anything you 
shouldn’t.” 

But Lynneth’s perceptions were too acute to be easily 
blinded. And as time went on she became more and 
more conscious that not only in the larger social world 
wherein she felt herself an alien, but also in the tiny 
one of the household to which she at least temporarily 
belonged, much was happening she did not clearly see, 
nor understand. 

Steadily there grew within her a new and uncom¬ 
fortable conviction that between the austere walls of 
what the newspapers sometimes described as “the 
Hetherington mansion” an all but invisible drama was 
being enacted. Instinct told her that upon a stage of 
which she had as yet caught scarcely a glimpse Valerie, 
Lisa and Phil Armytage were playing roles widely dif¬ 
ferent from those assigned them by their avowed and 
accredited situation. And this consciousness of hidden 
drama possessed her more and more as the weeks went 
by. What she feared, what she expected, she did not 
know; but only that her nerves tingled, responding to 
the vibrations of the unseen action, that amid the con¬ 
fused and indistinct murmurings which reached her from 
behind the still unlifted curtain there came an infrequent 
word or sound laden with menace, foreshadowing pos¬ 
sible tragedy. 

Out of all this bewilderment and confusion slowly 
emerged two or three discernible points, islets in a morass 
of bewilderment and conjecture. Lisa’s silent antago¬ 
nism, both towards Valerie and towards Lynneth her¬ 
self, had greatly increased. Moreover, there was some 
—could it be called understanding? Scarcely; the word 
was too definite in its meaning. Not precisely that, then; 
but something there certainly was between Valerie and 
the man who was going to marry her half-sister. A 
shared joke, perhaps; or so it might seem from their 
smiling glances, so stealthy and so swift. Yet if a joke, 


WASHINGTON SQUARE, NORTH 


41 


one which had a hint of treachery, more than a hint 
of challenge. . . . 

Of this challenge Lisa, she instinctively knew, was 
entirely aware. Yet she remained silent, passive, seem¬ 
ingly acquiescent. Only into her greedy eyes there came 
at times a gleam which suggested that her passivity, 
her acquiescence, were those of a cat, waiting the mo¬ 
ment to pounce. 

And the cat had claws of sharpest steel. 


CHAPTER FIFTH 


The preparations for the coming wedding progressed 
with the smoothness of well-oiled machinery. There was 
a brief period of intense anxiety when it seemed possible 
that the hand-wrought lingerie, all cobwebby linen and 
thread lace and fairy-like embroidery, might not arrive 
from Paris in time, but the fear happily proved ground¬ 
less. The final revision of the lists of guests, separating 
those who simply must be asked to the reception from 
the inferior beings entitled only to a card to the church, 
though nerve-racking enough, was less trying than the 
subsequent assigning of seats in that extremely fashion¬ 
able edifice, with all the endless complications introduced 
by divorces, second marriages and family feuds. No 
diplomat ever struggled with international difficulties 
more earnestly or more conscientiously than did Mrs. 
Blazius Bleecker Hetherington with the problems arising 
from the fact that human nature remains human nature, 
even in the very best society. 

Lynneth made herself as useful as her lack of famili¬ 
arity with such functions would permit, while Mr. 
Hetherington observed with silent bitterness that her ser¬ 
vices did not, after all, cause his wife to dispense with 
those of a highly trained, highly paid secretary. Mrs. 
Hetherington, dutifully absorbed though she was in the 
approaching wedding, was also aware of a slight dis¬ 
appointment whenever she thought of Lynneth. No use 
denying it, the child wasn’t a success! But she was a 
sweet-tempered, unobtrusive little thing, and a convenient 
companion for Valerie. She might be old-fashioned, 
but in her opinion it didn’t look well for a girl to be 
seen running about alone, even in the daytime. Other 

42 


WASHINGTON SQUARE, NORTH 


43 


mothers might do as they pleased, but she intended to 
look after her daughter! In the evenings, if she did not 
herself act as chaperone, the discreet Parkins always went 
with the girls in the motor. That was the way she had 
been brought up, and she thanked heaven that she -and 
her husband were conservative people who kept to the 
good old customs! 

On the whole, she wasn’t sorry they had been so gen¬ 
erous to Paul Frear’s daughter. And they had been 
extremely generous. Why, they needn’t have done any¬ 
thing for her! Most people wouldn’t in these days 
when family ties were so little regarded! As soon as 
Lisa was safely settled, she’d make it her business to 
learn something about this young Danvers Calhoun. He 
seemed to be paying Lynneth a good deal of attention, 
but then one couldn’t tell—good gracious, she’d put Mrs. 
Vance in the pew with her brother-in-law, and they 
hadn’t been on speaking terms for years! 

Lynneth felt the subtle change in her Aunt Honoria’s 
attitude. She was beginning to puzzle a good deal, and 
to worry more than a little about her plans of future 
independence. She couldn’t and wouldn’t go on this 
way! But whenever she spoke of trying to find “some¬ 
thing to do” she was met by a placid; “Oh, my dear, 
wait until after the wedding! I can’t think about any¬ 
thing else just now. And I don’t know what I’d do 
if you weren’t here to help me. Would you mind listing 
the presents that came this morning? I’m so afraid of 
having Lisa thank people for the wrong things! They 
always think it’s done on purpose.” 

Lynneth listed the presents. 

Her task finished, she decided on a walk. Aunt 
Honoria wouldn’t want her again this afternoon, and 
Valerie was at a bridge party. She wondered whether 
she might make another attempt to see Joan Hilary? 
Twice she had gone to the house, once a private 
dwelling, now divided into apartments of “two rooms and 


44 


LOVE AND LIFE 


bath/’ between Third Avenue and Gramercy Park, and 
twice there had been no response to her ring. Perhaps 
she’d better wait until she heard from Miss Hilary, and 
merely go for a walk. 

The winter day was of a rare, gem-like brightness. 
Not a breath of wind stirred the frosty air, which seemed 
to glitter in the light of the low February sun. The 
cold urged pedestrians to an unwonted briskness. Cart¬ 
wheels grated on the roadways with the sharp, brittle 
sound heard only when the temperature is well below 
freezing. Whipped by the stinging cold, the young blood 
mounted into Lynneth’s cheeks until they glowed; her 
eyes were starry beneath the candid brow. Fastening 
the brown fur high about her throat and cuddling her 
small hands cosily within the shelter of her big muff, 
she strode swiftly forward, youth and the joyous ex¬ 
pectancy of youth in her every glance and movement. 
Turning into Fifth Avenue, she flung a momentary, 
backward look to where the Washington Arch rose above 
the glistening snow, fresh-fallen that very morning. The 
trees were pencilled in sharply slender black lines against 
the hard keen blue of the cloudless winter sky. On the 
snow-covered pathways children played, children of the 
very rich and of the very poor, their shrill cries rising 
high and thin to meet and blend in the clear bright air. 
A sudden longing for the childish delights she had never 
known pierced Lynneth. Watching the little things 
scamper back and forth, her eyes softened; she smiled 
involuntarily; there was a pleasant warmth at her heart. 
Then with a quick little upward movement of the head 
she went her way along the Avenue. 

She was a rapid walker. Soon she had passed the 
deserted, snow-bound benches of Union Square, where 
the bare-headed statue of Lafayette looked miserably 
chilly, and reached the corner of Twenty-third Street. 
Avoiding the little triangle on which stands the Worth 
Monument whose reason for being is a profound and 


WASHINGTON SQUARE, NORTH 


45 


completely uninteresting mystery to most of the thou¬ 
sands who see it every day, she crossed over to Madison 
Square. There was something pleasantly familiar in the 
crunching of the hard-trodden snow beneath her feet, 
and she glanced anxiously up at the big clock on the 
Metropolitan Tower, hoping it might still be early enough 
for her to take a turn about the Square and then go 
on as far as Thirty-fourth Street before she started 
homewards. 

It was not until she lowered her eyes that she saw 
Joan Hilary coming towards her across the snow, the 
almost insolently careless carriage of her tall, rather lanky 
figure as noticeable here in the open air as it had been 
in Mrs. Hetherington’s drawing-room. She was one of 
those peculiar persons who never seem to become a part 
of their background, but always remain, if not exactly 
alien, at least somewhat detached. 

Catching sight of Lynneth, she quickened her already 
swift pace and came rapidly towards her, holding out a 
long, capable hand encased in a fleece-lined glove. She 
never carried a muff, declaring it “an infernal nuisance.” 

“This is a jolly bit of luck!” she exclaimed cordially. 
“I’ve tried half a dozen times to get hold of you for 
tea, but the confounded wire was always busy—or Cen¬ 
tral said it was! Come on home with me now.” 

For all her tendency towards hero-worship, Lynneth 
had developed a certain amount of skepticism during the 
months spent in Washington Square, and such a speech 
as this she would usually have discounted by ninety, if 
not a hundred per cent. But in Joan’s strong face and 
nervous, husky voice there was something which con¬ 
vinced you that if she said she had made half a dozen 
attempts to get you on the telephone, the probability 
was that she had tried a full six times, or perhaps eight. 

Lynneth looked again at the clock. She wasn’t sure 
she could go with Joan and be back before six, but— 
oh well, she’d risk it. Lots of girls went around alone 


46 


LOVE AND LIFE 


after nightfall, and without being in their own cars 
either! 

All Mrs. Hetherington’s dictates, dictates her own 
daughter constantly and consistently evaded, Lynneth 
had obeyed, simply because Aunt Honoria had been 
kind to her. Now for the first time she felt resentful 
of the numerous “Thou shalt nots,” whose origin lay in 
out-worn conventions, and not in reason. But if she 
rebelled, she would rebel frankly and openly—submit, or 
defy. 

“I’d love to come!” she exclaimed enthusiastically, 
adding; “I’ve tried to see you a couple of times, but you 
were always out.” 

“Been doing my noblest to convince the workmen who 
are fitting up the shop for us that it wouldn’t do them 
any permanent injury to interrupt their conversation now 
and then, and get something done. If I couldn’t accom¬ 
plish more in an hour than they do in a day, I’d go out 
and hang myself with the utmost rapidity!” 

“Would you mind telling me something about the shop ? 
I’m tremendously interested! You see, when I first 
came to New York I expected to go to work very soon, 
and earn my own living. But Aunt Honoria wanted me 
to stay on and help her with Lisa’s wedding, and so— 
and so-” 

“And so you subsided comfortably into the Hethering- 
ton cotton-wool? Don’t you find it rather oppressive 
sometimes ? Should think you’d stifle!” 

This might not be particularly polite, but Lynneth was 
too interested to be critical. 

“I’m not sure I know exactly what you mean?” 

Joan answered the question with another. “How much 
of New York have you really seen since you got here?” 

Lynneth hesitated. “Oh, a good deal of it!” 

“Through the windows of a limousine! Wager any¬ 
thing you like that all you know is one side of Washing- 



WASHINGTON SQUARE, NORTH 


47 


ton Square—and only a part of that!—a bit of Murray 
Hill, Park Avenue and Fifth, with a few of the side- 
streets between them. Aren’t those the only places— 
well, within bounds ?” 

“Ye-es. I suppose so. All the people we go to do 

seem to live- But isn’t that New York? At least, 

the New York of the native-born?” 

“Bless you, no, child, of course it isn’t!” Then in 
parentheses; (“Here we are. Wait a minute till I open 
the door. Ever hear such creaky stairs? Take off your 
things and sit down by the radiator while I start the 
kettle.) Oh, it’s a part of it, of course. But New York, 
English-speaking New York, isn’t one city. One city! 
It’s a couple of dozen at least, and they’re all as differ¬ 
ent as different can be. Every one sees and recognizes 
the foreign colonies; I’m not talking about them, but 
about—well, I was born and brought up in the Hether- 
ingtons’ New York. Got tired of it, and had a go at 
Greenwich Village. Hadn’t much use for that either. 
Now I’m living in another, not so definitely located on 
the map, but just as distinct.” 

“And that is-?” 

“The New York of the professional women. Not the 
“arty” crowd that dabbles and messes, but the genuine 
workers who don’t waste any time on attitudinizing. 
They live—oh, they live all over the place, from the 
Battery to the Bronx, but they’ve got a New York of 
their own, just the same.” 

She had flung gloves and coat aside while she talked, 
and pulling off her hat, thrown it towards a chair. 
Hitting the chair, it rolled off and fell to the floor. Her 
straight brown hair, turned up and fastened close about 
her head, looked at first glance as if it had been bobbed. 
Her high cheek bones, irregular, aggressive nose, gener¬ 
ously cut mouth and uncompromising chin gave her the 
look of a portrait-study only roughly blocked in. It was 




48 


LOVE AND LIFE 


a strong face, full of character, redeemed from plainness 
by a camelia-like complexion and changeful, yellow- 
flecked hazel eyes. 

“What about the people who live in all those big apart¬ 
ment houses on Riverside Drive?” Lynneth asked curi¬ 
ously, remembering Aunt Honoria’s sweeping classifica¬ 
tion, and her own conjectures. 

Joan hitched her thin shoulders. “You’ll find a few 
of the professionals over there, but not many. Too ex¬ 
pensive. Generally speaking, it’s the happy hunting 
ground of the transplanted. Most of them come from 
towns and smaller cities. They make money; they crowd 
the shops and theatres, and they’ll cheerfully pay any 
price to go where they think they’ll see what they call 
fashionable society. And their chances of belonging to 
the New York they want to be a part of are about as 
good as if they lived in Borneo. What do you think,” 
she added abruptly, “what do you think of the people you 
see at those Friday afternoons Mrs. Hetherington clings 
to so pertinaciously?” 

The younger girl stared thoughtfully into her tea-cup. 
It was of the finest Minton; the tea fragrant Chinese. As 
in a procession, she saw those who passed through Mrs. 
Hetherington’s drawing-room on Friday afternoons. 
Their names, many of them, might have been found in 
any history of old New York. They came from various 
parts of the city, some splendidly dressed, others pathetic 
in their shabbiness, all alike convinced of their superiority 
to ordinary mortals. And though some were scarcely 
middle-aged, if more were old, the greater number con¬ 
veyed a curious impression, an impression not at all a 
matter of years, of belonging to the dead past rather 
than to the living present. Something lay upon them 
like a blight. A something not of evil, but of a withering 
at the root. Lynneth observed the effect; the cause she 
could not divine. Only one with far more knowledge of 
the world could have seen in it the inevitable fate of any 


WASHINGTON SQUARE, NORTH 


49 


aristocracy which tries to enjoy its privileges while neg¬ 
lecting its responsibilities, priding itself on the deeds of 
its forefathers without an effort to emulate them, and 
lauding their fight for freedom while yielding supinely 
to the rule of the ward-heeler and the Tammany boss. 

She raised her eyes, and her enquiring gaze met Joan’s 
frankly. 

“They don’t seem very—very young at heart,” she said 
slowly, trying to put her impressions into words, and 
finding it difficult. 

Joan spoke bitingly; “They represent the class that has 
shirked for more than one generation. Those who were 
born with power and were too lazy to use it; who should 
have led, and found it less trouble to follow.” 

Lynneth’s dark brows drew together; she was trying 
to express thoughts familiarity had not yet moulded into 
phrases. “But if new people didn’t come up now and 
then, if they didn’t have a chance to be leaders when the 
gift for leadership’s in them-?” 

“Oh, an aristocracy that keeps its powers alive by using 
them needn’t fear competition! It has all the chances 

on its side. But —noblesse oblige! If it doesn’t-” 

she dropped the sentence. 

“To be born with chances and responsibilities and 
sneak away from them! That’s a pretty mean sort of 
cowardice, isn’t it? The shirkers-” 

“Belong in limbo, of course. Salvation’s for those 
willing to fight for it. Have another cup?” 

“Yes, please.” 

That reply was mechanical. Lynneth’s eager mind 
worked rapidly, its changes of thought reflected in the 
expressive face whose mobility was its greatest charm. 
Joan’s incisive speech had linked things up for her, giv¬ 
ing a wide significance to what had seemed of small 
importance, suggesting large issues, showing past and 
present as parts of each other, and of a wide-flung whole. 

“Sorry Madge Ayres didn’t come in,” Joan remarked 





50 


LOVE AND LIFE 


irrelevantly. She had a way of suddenly dismissing one 
subject and picking up another with no discernible rela¬ 
tion to the first. “I hoped she would. Like you to meet 
her.” 

“Who is she?” 

“My partner. Fascinating little Southern woman who 
looks as if she couldn’t do a thing, and can do almost 
anything. She’s scrapped her husband, and now she’s 
here in New York on her own.” 

“Divorced? How dreadful!” 

“Shocked?” 

Lynneth’s eyebrows went up. “Why, isn’t it dreadful 
to see people fail? And what’s divorce, after all, but 
an admission of failure?” 

“Um-m. Sometimes! Sometimes only of a need for 
readjustment. Expect Madge’ll try again one of these 
days. Why shouldn’t she?” Joan was doing a little in¬ 
vestigating. 

“It does seem silly to—well, to be like the men, 

‘Who proudly clung 

To their first fault and withered in their pride/ 

doesn’t it?” Lynneth seldom quoted poetry, but she felt 
amazingly at ease with Joan. “It’s different if there 
hasn’t been any mistake. My mother died when I was 
a wee bit of a girl, and I don’t think my father ever 
looked or even wanted to look at another woman.” 

Again Joan hitched her shoulders. “That kind of 
fidelity’s rather more ethereal than practical, isn’t it? 
We’ve got to live in this very matter of fact world— 
unfortunately! I’ve an idea you might like Madge. Tea 
sweet enough?” 



CHAPTER SIXTH 


Lynneth wished she could see Joan often. There 
were so many things she’d like to talk over with that 
detached and frequently brusque person! Yet after all, 
there was only one question she could put into definite 
form; what was she to do in the future? Dependence, 
unpalatable almost from the first, was becoming more 
distasteful every day. 

She had never intended more than a visit which should 
prepare her for going to work. She found herself sur¬ 
rounded by walls, padded until they were soft as down 
pillows, and as resilient. Every suggestion she made was 
instantly vetoed. When a magazine article gave her the 
idea of taking a course in a business college, Mrs. Heth- 
erington was as shocked as if she had proposed studying 
to become an expert pickpocket. 

“My dear child!” she exclaimed. “You couldn’t pos¬ 
sibly. It’s quite out of the question. Don’t give it an¬ 
other thought.” 

“But why not? Other girls-” 

“You’re not ‘other girls,’ my dear. You’re Lynneth 
Frear, my niece. What might be perfectly proper for 
Miss Brown of Harlem, wouldn’t do for you at all. We 
won’t say any more about it. Will you ring for Wilbur, 
please ?” 

The butler’s entrance ended the discussion. Symbol¬ 
ically, at least, the butler’s entrance always did end such 
discussions. 

Mrs. Hetherington had the advantage of age, and of 
her position as hostess. Insistence without rudeness was 
difficult, especially as Lynneth had no cherished plan on 
which to insist. Day after day she studied the “Help 

51 



52 


LOVE AND LIFE 


Wanted’’ columns in the newspapers; but no one seemed 
to need the services of a young woman who read Greek 
and was intimately acquainted with the English classics. 
Plus a working knowledge of French and typewriting, 
these were her only qualifications. 

But plan or no plan, she could do nothing until after 
the wedding. Then she would force the issue, despite 
all Mrs. Hetherington’s feather-pillow resistance. And 
all the while her attention was being distracted from her 
own affairs by the sense of hidden drama, the conscious¬ 
ness that Lisa was waiting, cat-like, waiting—for what? 

What was she looking for? What did the dull flame 
mean which so often smouldered in those pale eyes? 
There was scarcely a spoken word, scarcely an open 
action to be seized upon as a clue, a significant nucleus 
of crystallization. Yet Lynneth knew that Valerie was 
gayly, self-confidently defiant, while Lisa—waited. 

Since her coming to Washington Square, circum¬ 
stances had constrained Lynneth to passivity. Now, sud¬ 
denly, that happened which demanded swift and decided 
action. 

It began with an argument, not at all unusual, between 
Valerie and her mother, as to which of two invitations 
should be accepted. 

“I don’t want to go to the Vances’,” Valerie declared 
sullenly. “I don’t want to go to the Vances’, and I do 
want to go to the carnival dance at the Demarests’. 
They’ll have a jolly crowd, and the Vances’ parties are 
always so stodgy!” 

“We won’t say any more about it, my dear,” replied 
Mrs. Hetherington, using a favourite formula. “Neither 
your father nor I want you to have anything to do with 
Mrs. Demarest. She’s not a person we care to have 
our daughter associate with. Lynneth dear, please write 
acceptances for yourself and Valerie to Mrs. Vance, and 
regrets to Mrs. Demarest. Lisa is going to an after¬ 
theatre supper at Mary Taylor’s.” 


WASHINGTON SQUARE, NORTH 


53 


Valerie looked sulky, but she said no more, and Lyn- 
neth did not think again of the disagreement. She did 
not particularly care for Mrs. Demarest, whose manners 
were as artificial as her complexion, and whose reputa¬ 
tion, like her lips, was of a much too brilliant scarlet. 
But there were a number of things in this new life for 
which she did not particularly care, as well as many she 
thoroughly relished. 

The Vances’ dinner-dance was exactly like the major¬ 
ity of dinner-dances. Danvers Calhoun took her in, and 
ostentatiously devoted himself to her. People had begun 
to assign them to each other and he had, as he very well 
knew, received more than one desirable invitation simply 
because of that assignment. 

Lynneth herself had never thought his admiration 
serious, but she enjoyed it, as every normal girl enjoys 
the admiration of any man she does not positively dis¬ 
like; at least, until he begins to prefer claims. This 
danger point Calhoun was fast approaching. 

“You haven’t even looked at me for ever so long!” he 
exclaimed reproachfully as she turned back to him after 
talking a few minutes with Freddy Saunders, who was 
on her other side. Lily Gresham, at Calhoun’s own left, 
was a shrewd young person with no intention of wasting 
valuable time, and he had sat neglected and annoyed. 
“What did you find so interesting about that dub?” 

“I forgot to make any notes,” she replied, demurely 
mischievous. 

“Why won’t you tell me what you were talking about ?” 

“Why should I ?” 

“Because you know how much I care about everything 
you say and do! Seems to me we’re good enough—■ 
friends for me to-” 

“Goodness! All this seriousness because I turned my 
back on you for five minutes!” 

“Oh, very well! Of course, if you don’t care how. I 
feel-” 




54 


LOVE AND LIFE 


“Don’t be absurd!” she interrupted hastily. “I don’t 
want to quarrel with you.” 

“But you don’t mind making me miserable!” 

She flushed a little. His tone was making her ask 
herself whether he could really be in earnest? The idea 
was flattering and not unpleasant, but she wanted time, 
and she spoke hurriedly and at random; “Don’t you think 
we’ve talked nonsense long enough? Who’s the man 
sitting next to Marjorie Vance?—the one in uniform Mr. 
Lawrence is just speaking to?” 

Calhoun had not sufficient subtlety to understand the 
reason for that hasty question. He felt snubbed; irri¬ 
tated to an extent that surprised him. His reply was 
ungracious; “Fellow named Tressel—Geoffrey Tressel. 
Mrs. Vance is one of those hysterical women who think 
they show their patriotism by making a fuss about every 
putty-headed idiot who got over to the other side and 
managed to come back with a decoration.” 

Lynneth would have been more than human had she 
resisted the temptation to tease him; she didn’t even try. 

“He doesn’t look as if there were anything the matter 
with him,” she remarked critically, her pretty head 
cocked a little to one side. “Of course you may be right 
about his being a mental defective, but he certainly 
doesn’t look it!” 

“I didn’t say he was a mental defective! I only-” 

“Who’s defective?” put in Freddy Saunders, from 
Lynneth’s other side. 

“The man Mr. Lawrence is talking to. Mr. Calhoun 
says-” 

“Who? Tressel? Oh rot! Nothing of the sort. He 
did get knocked around a good bit during the war—he’s 
an aviator and he’s got a whole car-load of medals—but 
they fixed him up as good as new. / knew him over 
there.” Freddy was enjoying the sound of his own voice, 
and Calhoun’s annoyance. “He hasn’t been in New York 




WASHINGTON SQUARE, NORTH 


55 


much, and he’s only here for a night now. Off to the 
Coast tomorrow.” 

Which piece of information did not sadden Calhoun. 

Perhaps the mysterious sixth sense with which we are 
all endowed made Geoffrey Tressel aware that they were 
talking about him. He glanced in their direction. And 
across the dim spaces of the room, where the small, 
candle-lit, flower-strewn tables made little oases of light, 
his eyes met those of Lynneth Frear. 

Something seemed to flash between them; a faint, in¬ 
explicable, curiously pleasant shock of recognition. 
“Why, I know him!” Lynneth thought. During the in¬ 
stant his eyes held hers this feeling of recognition became 
so strong that next moment she turned to Saunders, ask¬ 
ing; “Hasn’t Mr. Tressel been in New York this winter? 
I’m sure I’ve met him somewhere! And his name’s 
familiar too.” 

“Guess you’ve heard Lawrence speak of him. He 
hasn’t been near New York for ever so long. He’s been 
down South on government business of some sort or 
other.” 

Calhoun scowled. “Humph! Don’t these politicians 
make you tired? Giving a boy like that all sorts of 
chances just because his uncle was an ambassador!” 

“You’re ’way off!” Freddy Saunders’ reply was de¬ 
cidedly snappish. “You’re ’way off! Tressel knows 
more about aeronautics in a minute than most of us could 
learn in a hundred years. Besides, old Winthrop Tressel 
threw him over ages ago.” He speared an ice with his 
fork, adding aggressively; “Tressel’s a bully good scout. 
/ knew him over there.” 

That really wasn’t nice of Freddy. It was not Cal¬ 
houn’s fault that he had never gone beyond the camp on 
Long Island. But he was silenced, and Lynneth, attrib¬ 
uting to him a regret he did not feel, began to talk of 
something else. 


56 


LOVE AND LIFE 


But in spite of Freddy’s denials, the feeling of recog¬ 
nition, the sense that she had met and knew this Geoffrey 
Tressel, persisted so strongly that later in the evening, 
when Ashby Lawrence introduced him to her and he 
asked for a dance, almost the first thing she said was: 
“Have you ever been in New England, Major Tressel?” 

He shook his dark head, watching her face with quick, 
keen eyes, grey-blue, deep-set, and very clear. “Only on 
the Maine coast, and in Boston.” 

“And you haven’t been in New York at all this 
winter ?” 

“Not for six or seven years—just after I left college. 
I went abroad then, and though I meant to come back, 
the war happened along, and, of course, I couldn’t. I 
hope to stay put in America now—for a while, anyway. 
I’ve promised to spend the summer with some friends 
of mine, the Thornes, who live up in the northern part 
of the state. Do you know that country?” 

“No, not at all. It’s queer—perhaps you’ve a double 
somewhere? I’m sure I’ve seen you before.” 

He manoeuvred his way skilfully through a tangle of 
couples; but he was an excellent dancer, and she felt 
sure that it was not the difficulties of the crowded floor 
which made him pause. 

“It is queer,” he responded presently, “because, do you 
know, I had the same feeling about you? I asked Law¬ 
rence who you were, and whether- Oh, thunder!” 

The muttered exclamation was music to Lynneth. She 
too resented Calhoun’s cutting in and carrying her off 
with an air of possessive triumph. 

She had an unusually good time that evening. She 
danced again with Tressel, and was chatting gayly to 
Ashby Lawrence, whose quizzical smile softened a little 
as he answered her when, just before midnight, Valerie 
touched her arm. 

“Listen, Lynnie!” she said hurriedly, drawing her a 
little aside. “I’m going over to the Demarests’. Phil— 



WASHINGTON SQUARE, NORTH 


57 


I mean, I’ve got a date there. You can stop for me 
with the car.” 

“But, Valerie, your mother-” 

“Oh, rot! She and father have gone to the opera. 
They’ll be tucked up in their little beds long before we 
get home. What you don’t know doesn’t hurt you, and 
she’ll never know a thing about this, unless”—the inno¬ 
cent, madonna-like eyes were hard now, and suspicious 
—“unless you give me away.” 

“You know I won’t do that!” 

Valerie’s tone and manner changed on the instant. 
“ ’Course I do! You’re a dear little soul, Lynnie, and 
I love you lots. Now trot along and make eyes at 
Danvers Calhoun while I go where there’s something 
doing. Don’t forget to pick me up! ’By!” 

And Valerie, radiantly lovely in the clinging, flame- 
coloured chiffon which emphasized the sea-foam white¬ 
ness of her throat and shoulders, slipped out of sight 
among the crowd. 

Lynneth was troubled. It wasn’t, of course, the first 
time such a thing had happened, but it was the very first 
time Valerie had gone to a specifically prohibited place 
—at least, so far as Lynneth knew. She had never fol¬ 
lowed her popular cousin’s example, but she had heard 
many rumours of what went on at these “awfully jolly” 
parties. She shrugged her pretty shoulders as she turned 
back to her partner. Valerie would do as she pleased; 
she always did as she pleased! 

But for once she found herself obliged to interfere. 

Less than half an hour had gone by when a footman 
came to her; “You’re wanted on the telephone, ma’am.” 

A chilly little breath of foreboding seemed to blow over 
her as she took up the receiver. Mr. Hetherington’s 
voice came over the wire. 

“Hello!—Oh, that you, Lynneth? I told them to get 
either you or Valerie. I wanted to let you know that 
your aunt and I will stop for you and bring you home. 



58 


LOVE AND LIFE 


Johnson was run into by another car on the way back 
to the garage, and the brougham can’t be used.” 

“Was Johnson hurt?” 

“Johnson-? Oh, some scratches, I believe. But 

I don’t want you to come home in a taxi tonight. There’s 
to be a big meeting, Bolshevist or I. W. W. or something 
of the kind, down in Union Square, and they’re pre¬ 
dicting all sorts of trouble.” 

Lynneth’s thoughts raced. “You’re ’phoning from the 
Metropolitan ?” 

“Yes; we’re going on to the Delavans’ for supper. We’ll 
leave there at twenty minutes past one, and stop for you 
at half-past. Tell Valerie to be ready; her mother doesn’t 
like to be kept waiting. Good-by!” 

Lynneth hung up the receiver and seized the telephone 
book. She must warn Valerie. 

“Columbus, 26937.—Yes, please.—What did you say? 
—The line’s out of order?—Oh, can’t you get a message 
through? It’s important.—You can’t?—You’re sure?— 
Very well. Good-by!” 

What was she to do? What in the world could she 
do? Mr. Hetherington would be furious ! He had often 
boasted that no matter what other people’s daughters 
might be, his were obedient! There’d be an awful row! 
He particularly objected to Mrs. Demarest—and that 
Valerie should deceive him and her mother would hurt 
them both- 

She thought only of the trouble this prank of Valerie’s 
might cause, not of any effect it would perhaps have upon 
herself. Somehow, she must warn Valerie. 

She must go to her; there wasn’t any other way. Go 
to her, and bring her back before her father came. Up¬ 
stairs for her coat; then a taxi- 

“Is anything the matter?” Geoffrey Tressel was beside 
her, looking down at her small, tense face. “Can’t I do 
something ?” 

The dancing had begun again. They were alone in the 





WASHINGTON SQUARE, NORTH 


59 


tapestry-hung foyer, just outside the ballroom, at the 
foot of the great stairway. 

She paused, glanced at him—and came instantly to a 
decision. “Will you get me a taxi, please? And—don’t 
let any one know.” 

“I’ll have one here in two seconds. Anything else?” 

Not by so much as the movement of an eyelid did he 
ask an explanation. Obscurely, irresistibly impelled, she 
offered one. 

“My cousin, Valerie Hetherington, has gone to a party 
at the Demarests’. I’ve got to—to bring her back here. 

Her father’s coming, and he- The line’s out of order; 

I can’t telephone.” 

“Get your coat and come along.” He had never heard 
of the Demarests, but he gauged the situation with a 
good deal of accuracy. “You have the address?” 

“Yes; No. — Central Park West.” 

“All right. I’ll be here. You’ll let me go with you, 
won’t you? It’s beastly dark and lonely crossing the 
Park, and some of these taxi drivers are a pretty tough 
lot.” 

Lynneth looked up at him—the top of her head reached 
only a little way above his shoulder. Their eyes met. 
She gave a quick little nod. “I won’t be a minute!” 

She ran upstairs to the dressing-room, demanded her 
white fur coat from the interested French maid, and 
flinging it about her shoulders, was back in little more 
than the stipulated minute. Quick as she was, Tressel 
was quicker. 

“What time is it ?” she asked as the taxi door slammed 
upon them. 

He consulted his watch. “Five minutes to one.” 

She bit her lip. Thirty minutes; she could count on 
thirty minutes’ grace, then; no more. Thirty minutes 
in which to reach the Demarests’, find Valerie, explain 
what had happened, and get her back to the Vances’ 
before her father and mother arrived! But what if she 



60 LOVE AND LIFE 

had left the Demarests’ for some cabaret? Thirty- 
minutes ! 

For Valerie’s sake, for her mother’s sake—how it 
would hurt Aunt Honoria to find out that Valerie had 
been cheating her! She mightn’t understand; of course 
it was just thoughtlessness and high spirits on Valerie’s 
part, but she mightn’t understand. And Mr. Hethering- 

ton-1 There’d be a quarrel, the worst sort of a 

quarrel- 

Oh, why, why didn’t the man drive faster? Thirty 
minutes! 

She sat on the very edge of the seat, her slim little 
hands tightly clasped together. Thirty minutes! But it 
wasn’t thirty minutes now! It seemed as if they had 
been hours on the way—hours! 

Thank goodness, they were turning out of the Park! 
They must be nearly there. Here they were, at last! 

It was a big, duplex apartment house, of the expensive 
“studio” type inhabited more by faddists than by artists. 
Many of the windows were dark, but the fifth floor was 
brilliantly lighted. Tressel glanced up, caught sight of 
several silhouettes, and suppressed an exclamation. 
There was a grim look about his mouth as he followed 
Lynneth into the elevator. 

In the palm-bedecked foyer of the Demarests’ apart¬ 
ment, coats and wraps of every sort and colour were 
heaped high. Lynneth flung hers among the rest. The 
studio, where they were dancing, was on the floor above. 
A white-painted, twisting stairway wound up to it. 

“Will you wait here for me?” she asked. She wanted 
to spare Valerie. 

“I’ll be ready when you want me.” His thoughts gave 
the phrase a double meaning. 

She nodded her thanks, and he saw that her eyelids 
were twitching with nervousness. But she did not hesi¬ 
tate. She turned, and went swiftly up the stairs, a 
wraith-like little figure in her fluffy, frivolous dancing 




WASHINGTON SQUARE, NORTH 


61 


dress of orchid-tinted tulle, with a tiny silver wreath 
banding the shadowy masses of her dark hair. 

There was a landing midway up the twisting staircase, 
and there for a breath of time she paused, glancing down 
at Tressel as if to see him gave her courage. . . . 

Only a breath of time. But he never forgot the pic¬ 
ture she made poised there alone, so small and slight 
and fragile-looking, her wistful mouth and deep grey 
eyes mutely grateful for the help her pride would have 
forbidden her to ask in any need of her own, going 
straight and unfaltering to a dreaded ordeal. 

From the room above came the barbaric discords of 
a jazz band, ear-piercing, nerve-thrilling, its throb and 
crash calling imperiously to the brute that lurks deep 
within even the most civilized. Tressel had heard that 
call many a time, but now it stirred him only to a 
profound, unreasoning anger. The Congo music, the 
shrieks of laughter, laughter which was a fitting accom¬ 
paniment to the negroid cries, the beat of tom-toms—and 
that slender girl with the innocently questing eyes, going 
to confront all they might imply! 

He paused a moment, unconsciously drawing up his 
six feet two of bone and muscle. He remembered those 
glimpsed silhouettes. 

And he had turned to the stairs before he heard her 
sharp cry of anger. 

Two at a time, he sprang up them. They led directly 
into the immense room, where rose-wreathed mirrors set 
in silken-hung walls reflected that which jungle music 
and champagne cocktails had helped to produce. 

A hilarious crowd had collected in one corner. Men 
and girls stood on tip-toe, pushing and shoving, dis¬ 
hevelled, squealing with hysterical laughter as they strug¬ 
gled to see over one another’s shoulders. 

Only golden-haired Valerie, standing on the edge of 
the group with Phil Armytage’s arm about her, made 
no effort to get nearer, but cried on a high note, more 


62 


LOVE AND LIFE 


of amusement than of protest: “Oh, let her alone, Sam! 
She’s just a silly kid. Let her alone!” 

Tressel could see over the heads of the others. He 
did not stop to argue. Catapulting straight into the 
midst of the half-hysterical, half-drunken crowd, fling¬ 
ing one and another aside, he reached the man whose 
clasp held Lynneth, wrenched his arms away, and struck 
him in the face. . . . 

He went sprawling. The crowd gaped its amazement 
—amazement which in an instant would turn to anger. 

Others came running. The crowd had grown. It 
swayed about them, bewildered, intimidated for the mo¬ 
ment. 

Tressel turned: “Let me pass!” 

Instinctively obeying that authoritative voice, the mob 
fell back. One arm shielding the girl, Tressel cleared 
a path through the few who might have resisted, sweep¬ 
ing them out of his way. 

Only one man, more courageous or more drunk than 
the rest, tried to interfere, crying thickly: “You shan’t! 
Damn you, you shan’t-” 

He never finished the sentence. Tressel’s fist caught 
him on the point of the jaw. . . . 

And still the savage music beat on, thump and crash 
and clang, clang and crash and thump! thump! thump! 

“Any one else object?” Tressel demanded. 

Nobody answered. They were almost at the door. 
But the odds against them were more than fifty to one, 
and a mob is a mob, no matter how much money it may 
represent. Should the dazed, befuddled crowd turn ugly 
there might, he thought grimly, be the devil to pay! 

He hurried the girl out of the room and down the 
stair, and pausing only to catch up her white fur coat, 
reached the elevator; the street; the waiting taxi. 

White and shaken, Lynneth lay back in one corner. 
In the other, Tressel sat, thinking with intense satisfac¬ 
tion of the impact of his fist on the fellow’s grinning 



WASHINGTON SQUARE, NORTH 


63 


mouth. He wouldn’t grin with any comfort for a good 
while, that was certain! One of his knuckles was slightly 
cut, and he smiled as he wiped off the blood with his 
handkerchief. 

They were among the shadows of Central Park when 
Lynneth put her hands to her disordered hair. In a low 
voice she did her best to keep steady; “I can’t thank you 
—enough!” she said. “If you hadn’t come-” 

That involuntary shudder of hers! 

Out of the darkness Tressel’s voice came, deep with 
understanding. “Don’t thank me. I’m glad I was there.” 

Her hands clenched. “I hope you hurt him!” 

“I hope I did! I don’t think he enjoyed it. I’d have 
liked to give him the thrashing of his life—cur!” 

Yielding to impulse; “Valerie was there,” she said 
abruptly. “She wouldn’t-” 

“She wouldn’t come?” he encouraged. 

“No. She said to tell her father she’d gone off with 
Lily Gresham. Lily was there, but—I hate lies!” 

“Then why-?” 

“I promised. I promised Valerie I wouldn’t give her 
away. And she’s always been so sweet to me; until to¬ 
night. But tonight she—she laughed when that horrible 

man-. They all laughed. They said I was a prude, 

and must pay forfeit for coming there where prudes 
weren’t admitted, and it would do me good to be—to 
be-” 

Her cheeks were burning. She could not finish, and 
very soon she was to wonder at the impulse which had 
carried her so far. She had known this man only a very 
few hours, yet it seemed perfectly natural to tell him— 
almost anything! 

“Don’t!” he exclaimed sharply. “To think of you in 

that crowd, and with that filthy brute-! You! It 

makes me savage!” 

She thrilled to her finger-tips. The same delicious tin- 








64 


LOVE AND LIFE 


gling had swept through her once before, when his pro¬ 
tecting arm went about her. . . . 

As the taxi drew up before the Vances’ house she 
turned to him, tried to speak, choked over the words, and 
silently offered him her hand. 

He took and held it firmly. The light of a street lamp 
shone full upon her face, flushed, with wide eyes and 
sweet, tremulous lips. He looked at them. And she 
knew he wanted to kiss her, and knew too that in spite 
of herself she would welcome his kiss. . . . 

Yet she was glad that he only pressed her fingers an 
instant, released them, and stooped to open the taxi door. 

They had been gone exactly twenty-nine minutes. 


CHAPTER SEVENTH 


“I suppose you’re in a blue rage,” remarked Valerie 
regretfully. “But really, Lynnie dear, it was all your 
own fault! When you’re in Rome, etcetera and so forth, 
you know.” 

She had just returned from a house-party up the Hud¬ 
son, and this was the first time she had seen Lynneth 
alone since the latter’s unexpected appearance at the 
Demarests’. 

“Yes. In future, I’ll keep away from—Rome. You 
can manage your little excursions there for yourself.” 

“Oh, come now, Lynnie, be a sport!” 

“Thank you, I’d rather not. Not if being a sport means 
acting like a—like a third-rate courtesan.” 

“Good gracious, what dreadful ideas you do have!” 

“Well, I won’t be—pawed over by any man who hap¬ 
pens to feel like pawing me, and that’s all there is to it. 
What you do is your own affair. If you enjoy having 
Phil Armytage-” 

“It’s only fun!” 

“Fun, to have the man who’s going to marry your sister 
behave towards you the way Phil was doing when I came 
in the other night ?” 

“Why, yes. We’re teasing Lisa almost out of her wits, 
and she doesn’t dare to say a word. She’s awfully afraid 
Phil will chuck her—or force her to chuck him!” 

Lynneth was silent. Valerie’s amusement, Valerie’s 
avowed and deliberate cruelty, sickened her. And sick¬ 
ened her the more, because she had for a time made 
Valerie her idol. 

Exceptionally bad weather was keeping them all in¬ 
doors that day. The rain, driven by a wicked north-east 

65 



66 


LOVE AND LIFE 


wind, lashed at the windows. The backyards on which 
Lynnetli’s room looked out were deserted; even the va¬ 
grant cats had fled to shelter. Though nearly one o’clock, 
the purple-black storm clouds hanging low over the city 
made it too dark to read or sew without artificial light. 
From the chintz-covered couch on which Valerie had 
flung herself her fair hair and white skin seemed softly 
luminous amid the shadows. She had strolled lazily into 
Lynneth’s room, made herself comfortable, and uttered 
the protest whose idle tone was contradicted by her 
anxious eyes. 

After a long pause: 

“Besides,” Valerie went on negligently, watching Lyn- 
neth closely from beneath her long curling lashes, “be¬ 
sides, Lynnie darling, isn’t it a little late in the day for 
you to start playing the unsuspecting innocent ?” 

Lynneth, who had been standing looking out at the 
wind-blown curtains of rain, turned on her swiftly. 

“What do you mean?” she demanded. 

“What do I mean?” drawled Valerie. “What do I—! 
Oh, come now, darling, don’t be absurd! You knew per¬ 
fectly well that Phil and I were meeting in all sorts of 
places, and you sat there in the car and waited for me 
like a little lamb.” 

“/ knew ?” 

“Of course you did! Oh, you pretended to believe my 
little fairy stories about calls and fittings and things, but 
you knew perfectly well I was going to tea dances at the 
hotels and meeting Phil all the time. D’you suppose I’d 
have looked out for you at parties the way I’ve been doing 
if you hadn’t done anything for me?” 

Since so much of the fat was in the fire, Valerie thought 
the rest might as well go after it and make a good hot 
blaze, perhaps reducing her antagonist to cinders. If 
Lynneth could be made to feel like an accomplice, she’d 
be a good deal less difficult to handle. 

It had been very amusing to carry on a half-hidden flir- 


WASHINGTON SQUARE, NORTH 


67 


tation with Lisa’s fiance, to have all their friends laughing 
at Phil’s infatuation and pitying Lisa; but it wouldn’t be 
so amusing to have—well, to have a row of any kind. 
Rows are always a nuisance! And since she had no 
money of her own, to make her father angry was to 
risk being rendered excessively uncomfortable. Valerie 
loathed being uncomfortable. Consequently, “Thou shalt 
not be found out,” was to her the first and greatest 
commandment. 

Lynneth faced her, her back to the window, her face 
pearl-white in the darkness. For a moment her quick, 
hard breathing alone broke the stillness of the room. 
Valerie quailed. 

Under stress of excitement and champagne, she might 
become reckless; she was never courageous. Lynneth’s 
silence frightened her. She wished she could recall what 
she had said, wished that instead of flaunting her very 
questionable behaviour she had appealed to Lynneth’s 
affection, Lynneth’s generosity. Perhaps it wasn’t too 
late to try! She broke into a laugh. 

“Oh, Lynnie darling, don’t glare at me like that! I 

was only joking. Of course I didn’t—I wasn’t-” She 

couldn’t go on. Her self-assurance was crumbled to 
pieces by some force—power of anger, power of person¬ 
ality—emanating from the small, still figure. 

“If any one, if your own mother had told me you could 
be so mean and—disgusting, I wouldn’t have believed 
her,” Lynneth said slowly. Her quiet voice was clear 
and cold as ice; ice which hid black waters of disillusion¬ 
ment and pain. “You’re so beautiful! How can you be 
so contemptible?” 

“Why don’t you say right out you hate me because 
you’re jealous of me?” Valerie had seized the first 
weapon at hand. It was her deepest conviction that all 
women were and must be jealous of her beauty and 
charm. “I’ve known how you felt, all the time!” 

“No, I don’t hate you,” Lynneth replied in the same 



68 


LOVE AND LIFE 


frozen tone. “I wish I could hate you! I was—fond of 
you once, and now—now I haven’t enough respect for 
you left to let me hate you.” 

This was quite over Valerie’s head. That contempt 
might make hatred impossible, was something she could 
no more understand than she could understand the hurt 
of Lynneth’s disillusionment. Who is without ideals 
never suffers from their destruction. 

Her mind went directly to practical issues. 

“Do you mean you’re going to break your promise and 
give me away?” she asked plaintively. 

Lynneth pressed her lips together. She had made ex¬ 
cuses for Valerie, had loved and admired her, believed in 
the often professed fondness for herself, and insisted to 
her own mind that there “wasn’t any harm” in the esca¬ 
pades she had supposed far less frequent than they were, 
and the truth about which she had never even imagined. 

The mean cruelty of the whole affair revolted her. 
Had Valerie been in love with Phil, in any way or to any 
degree, sympathy would have been possible. But this 
calculated deception, calculated garnering of pleasure 
from another’s pain, another’s humiliation—and that 
other her own sister! Here was evil stripped of romance 
and glamour, cautious, endeavouring not to risk any¬ 
thing. . . . 

“No,” she replied, quietly, but with a new bitterness 
permeating her voice. “No, I’m not going to give you 
away.” 

“You promise?” 

“I promise. And now, if you wouldn’t mind letting 
me have my room to myself?” 

Valerie rose with a sweeping, graceful movement of 
long, lithe limbs. “You’ve a polite way of turning me 
out !” she said. The little laugh failed to hide her discom¬ 
fiture. She had the promise she wanted; so far, she had 
won. Yet she knew herself dominated by the girl she 


WASHINGTON SQUARE, NORTH 


69 


had for a time successfully hoodwinked, successfully used 
to further her own ends. 

One other weapon was available. She grasped it, and 
struck. 

‘‘Of course I’ll quit if you want me to. I can’t argue 
with a guest—especially when the guest has nowhere else 
to go!” 

While speaking she had gone to the door. With the 
last words she slipped through, closing it behind her. 

Lynneth’s grey eyes were black with anger. 

An instant she paced the room; then she dropped on 
to the window-seat whose gay, daffodil-flowered chintz 
was dim in the uncertain light. Resting her elbows on her 
knees, she leaned her small, slightly pointed chin upon 
her hands and sat staring out into the grey dreariness of 
the rain. 

The habit of self-control had quickly reasserted itself. 
Looking out at the rain, she faced her future, faced it 
squarely and without shrinking. During these months in 
Washington Square she had allowed herself to be borne 
along upon the current of other people’s wills. Twice 
only had she acted decisively, and on her own volition. 
Once, insignificantly, when she went home with Joan 
Hilary; once vigorously, when for Valerie’s sake she went 
to the Demarests’, and there- 

Her cheeks burned at the recollection. Yet not en¬ 
tirely with anger. There was more of happiness than of 
suffering, and much of perplexity. She was honest 
enough to be honest even with herself. Geoffrey Tressel’s 
coming, the sense of security his presence had brought 
her, the thrilling sweetness of that last moment in the 
taxi—all these she held locked within her memory, taking 
them out now and then to look at them as one looks at 
the dear souvenirs of a past which is passed indeed. 

Since that evening she had never seen nor heard any¬ 
thing of him. Once or twice she had slipped into the 



70 


LOVE AND LIFE 


Public Library and asked for a file of California 
papers. . . . 

Now she put all this resolutely aside. Such vague 
dreams as had woven themselves about it had no possible 
bearing on the severely practical subject of her future. 

What was that future to be ? What would she like it 
to be? 

Easy enough to answer that second question! What 
she wanted, what she had always wanted as far back as 
she could remember, was the normal lot; the normal lot 
at its best; husband, children, a home of her own. But 
the husband of whom she dreamed was a man of men, 
the children sweet and sound and strong in mind and 
body, the home a place of trust and peace, a veritable 
sanctuary. 

With no faintest desire to enter the maelstrom of eco¬ 
nomic competition, she was being forced into it by neces¬ 
sity. Essentially a homemaker and home-lover, she had 
no home. 

Nor any prospect of one. Only Danvers Calhoun 
wanted her—perhaps. Perhaps, not even he! 

One thing alone was certain. She could not, would not 
remain in the house on Washington Square. 

Until Lisa’s wedding, now little more than a week off, 
was over, she could not go. It wouldn’t be fair, at this 
late day, to disarrange Aunt Honoria’s plans. But imme¬ 
diately afterwards they were all to leave for Aitken. She 
would stay behind, to do—what? 

The only thing she could think of was trying to carry 
out her original idea of becoming secretary to some 
scholar, doing for him what she had so long done for 
her father. No use being discouraged because she’d never 
seen such a position advertised! She might even adver¬ 
tise herself. Perhaps Miss Hilary could tell her where 
and how- 

Lisa’s unexpected entrance interrupted her planning. 
A tiny sniff made her aware that the newcomer had per- 



WASHINGTON SQUARE, NORTH 


71 


ceived the faint rose fragrance of the perfume especially 
compounded for Valerie, and knew who had been her 
most recent visitor. 

‘‘Mother’s lost her copy of the last list of presents, and 
thought you might have one,” Lisa remarked in that thin, 
metallic voice of hers. “I want to write some notes.” 

She spoke with meticulous politeness, but all the while 
her greedy eyes were darting curiously about the room. 
They reached the couch on which Valerie had lain, paused 
there, and flickered away. 

“It’s in my desk. Wait; I’ll get it for you.” 

For an instant, Lynneth bent to search the drawer, but 
only for an instant. And as she lifted her head she had 
an impression the dim light prevented from being a cer¬ 
tainty, that Lisa had picked up some small white object, 
and held it crumpled in her hand. 

She took the list with a word of thanks and was gone. 
There was an odd smile on her pale lips. 

Lynneth went back to her place by the window and her 
interrupted planning. Yes, that would be the best way, 
to advertise. . . . 

And while Lynneth, curled up on the window seat, was 
thus preparing to take up her fragile lance and challenge 
that world which has so little respect for weapons such 
as hers, Valerie, lounging gracefully in one of her 
mother’s easy chairs, was looking over some of the newly 
arrived presents, and amid her running comment on them 
inserting, quite dexterously, she thought, a spoke in Lyn- 
neth’s wheel. She had not been clever enough to avoid 
blundering that morning, but she was fully clever enough 
to realize that she had blundered, perhaps seriously. 

“I suppose Ashby Lawrence will send the invariable 
paper-knife. He certainly does know how to save himself 
trouble ! Considering their millions, I do think the Wests 
might have done better than a pair of pepper pots, don’t 
you? Of course, they don’t care much about Lisa, but 
Mrs. West’s such an old friend of yours! Her nephew’s 


72 


LOVE AND LIFE 


a nice boy; he was awfully decent about dancing with 
Lynneth the other night, when I asked him to.” 

“I’m sorry Lynneth isn’t more of a success. Did you 
put Mrs. Vance’s card back in the box with the candle¬ 
sticks ?” 

“Yes; it’s all right. I’m sorry about Lynnie too. I’ve 
done my best for her, but you know how it is! You just 
can’t keep on ramming an unpopular girl down men’s 
throats. And it’s—well, it’s making things awfully diffi¬ 
cult for me.” 

Now beautiful Valerie was Mrs. Hetherington’s most 
precious possession. Whatever and whoever interfered 
with Valerie or with Valerie’s pleasure was thencefor¬ 
ward and for that reason utterly condemned. 

“I’m not at all sure it was wise to ask her here,” the 
excellent matron remarked meditatively. It was the first 
time the thought had crossed her mind, but she spoke as 
if it were one long and carefully considered. “I did it 
partly because—well, for several reasons. Your father 
was against it from the first, but you know how good 
and generous he always is!” 

“You’re good and generous too. It wasn’t your fault. 
You couldn’t tell that Lynnie would turn out to be—to be 
the kind of girl she is, and behave in such an awfully fool¬ 
ish way!” 

“Why, darling, what has she been doing?” 

“Please, mamma, I’d rather not say. It doesn’t seem 
fair to tell on poor little Lynnie. She’s not been brought 
up to the sort of thing that goes on in New York, and I 
suppose you can’t blame her for losing her head. But 
looking after her is awfully difficult!” 

Again the question of Paul Frear’s daughter was dis¬ 
turbing Mrs. Hetherington’s placidity. 

“Of course,” she said slowly, “of course I quite under¬ 
stand. But it doesn’t seem to me as if we could very 
well—er—do anything, until after Lisa’s wedding.” She 
paused, and added, more impulsively than was her cus- 


WASHINGTON SQUARE, NORTH 


73 


tom. “What makes it so awkward is that Lynneth 
wanted to start in at once to earn her own living, and we 
couldn’t have her wandering around looking for work. 
What would people say ?” 

Valerie considered. “No, of course that wouldn’t have 
done at all. Awfully clever of her to hold you up that 
way, wasn’t it? But why,” she asked suddenly, “why 
shouldn’t she go as companion to Miss De Witt? You 
know, the place Joan Hilary wouldn’t take? I was talk¬ 
ing to Kathryn De Witt only last night, and she said the 
old lady hadn’t been able to find anyone to suit her. 
Lynnie would be— safe —there.” 

As safe, she might have added, as in a prison. 

Mrs. Hetherington had compunctions. She was by this 
time almost as determined to get Lynneth out of the house 
as Lynneth, had she but known it, was to go. But to 
send her to the ancient brown-stone mausoleum on Fifth 
Avenue where Miss De Witt lived, surrounded by pet 
poodles and her relatives’ prayers for her speedy demise, 
was a method from which she shrank. 

“It would be rather a dreary life for a young girl, 
wouldn’t it?” she said deprecatingly. 

Valerie shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t see how we 
can help that! We’ve done all we could to give her a 
chance, and no one’s paid any real attention to her except 
that Calhoun man. You might give her a hint to try and 
hurry him up.” 

But the giving of hints wasn’t at all in Mrs. Hether- 
ington’s line. Nevertheless, when Lynneth, happening to 
find her alone, once more suggested that it was time she 
began to support herself, and put forward her idea of an 
advertisement, Mrs. Lletherington did go so far as to say; 
“Well, my dear, we don’t want to keep you here against 
your will, you know. Still, just now, with this wedding 
on hand-” 

She paused. Dismay had penetrated her serenity. If 
Lynneth advertised, people would know about it, and talk! 



74 


LOVE AND LIFE 


Talk a good deal more, now that they had all met Lyn- 
neth, than they would have done a few months ago. She 
retreated from the thought. Miss De Witt appeared be¬ 
fore her in the guise of a rescuer, not of Lynneth, but of 
Mrs. Blazius Bleecker Hetherington. 

“We’ll find you something to do, my dear, so you won’t 
have to advertise. I wouldn’t say anything about it yet, 
if I were you, especially not to—er—to Mr. Calhoun. 
People do get such wrong impressions! Just call up 
Veronique, and tell them Lisa and I will come to look 
at the new embroidery designs for her slippers this after¬ 
noon, will you, please?” 

She sighed as Lynneth went to the telephone. Pity 
she should be a nuisance to Valerie, when she was such 
a convenience to Valerie’s mother! But since she was a 
nuisance to Valerie, that ended the matter. 

Would it be better to see Miss De Witt personally, or 
to arrange with her by letter? 


CHAPTER EIGHTH 


These last few days before the wedding were busy 
ones for Mrs. Hetherington. Yet she found time for an 
interview with Miss De Witt. It proved thoroughly sat¬ 
isfactory. Upon learning that Lynneth had acted as her 
father’s secretary, that • austere personage even conde¬ 
scended to remark that the girl would probably be able 
to help her with her correspondence. The number of let¬ 
ters she was obliged to write in the interests of the Inter¬ 
national Prohibition Society, the Anti-Nicotine Associa¬ 
tion, the Society For The Investigation of Domestic 
Morals and various others, took up altogether too much 
of her time. 

Mr. Hetherington gave the project his unqualified ap¬ 
proval. Remembering the bills for Lynneth’s winter out¬ 
fit, he sighed with relief at the thought of not being 
obliged to provide her with a summer one also. In short, 
everybody was gratified—except Lynneth, still ignorant 
of the incarceration so kindly arranged for her. 

Sensitive to changes in the emotional temperature, she 
was aware that the atmosphere had become a trifle chilly. 
This she attributed to the altered relations between her¬ 
self and Valerie, not realizing that she did so because it 
was still Valerie who interested her most. 

For Valerie was the first person who had ever offered 
her affection, and though she now knew the offer a lie, 
she could not at once withdraw what she herself had 
given. She despised Valerie. But she would have cut 
her right hand off, willingly and deliberately, could she 
thereby have restored her shattered idol to its pedestal. 

The wedding day came at last, a day all blue and gold, 
of cloudless skies and sparkling sunshine. The very beau- 

75 



76 


LOVE AND LIFE 


tiful and fabulously expensive church on Fifth Avenue 
and Fifty -th Street, which the Hetheringtons attended 
on those occasional pleasant Sundays when they had noth¬ 
ing else to do, was crowded to the remotest corner, while 
outside a throng of the curious clung firmly to every post 
of vantage, refusing to be dislodged therefrom by the per¬ 
functory; “Move on there, can’t yer? Don’t yer see yer 
blockin’ up the sidewalk?” of a couple of fat, good- 
natured policemen. 

Within, the soft strains of the fifty-thousand-dollar or¬ 
gan blended with the rustling and whispering of the con¬ 
gregation. Bored, yet anxious ushers hurried up and 
down the aisles, pausing now and then to consult their 
typewritten lists; and the lilies and bride’s roses with 
which the church was profusely decorated suggested sar¬ 
castic comments to more than one aspiring wit. 

But to Lynneth, as following the white-robed choir to 
the strains of the inevitable Lohengrin march, she came 
slowly pacing up the aisle beside Kathryn De Witt, it all 
seemed unreal; a theatrical performance, not a marriage. 
This ceremony which was to unite Lisa to a man who, 
as she must and did know, was marrying her only for her 
money, and whom she was marrying—why was she 
marrying him ?—seemed a grisly burlesque, grim and taw¬ 
dry. How would it end, the drama, divined, yet so long 
unseen, of which this was certainly not the last act? 
Where then would that last act be played ? On what sort 
of scene would the final curtain fall? 

And there had been a mystifying air of satisfaction 
about Lisa during these last few days, as if she who had 
so long bided her time was now prepared—for what? 

The joyous march beat an ironic accompaniment to 
Lynneth’s thoughts. 

Every one agreed that it was a perfectly beautiful wed¬ 
ding. The more beautiful, several suggested, because the 
bride kept her point-lace veil over her face as long as pos¬ 
sible. The bridesmaids’ quaint King Charles the First 


WASHINGTON SQUARE, NORTH 


77 


costumes were pronounced charmingly picturesque, while 
the bride’s own gown of silver brocade and white satin 
embroidered with seed pearls was, “Simply too wonderful 
for words, my dear 1” 

There was not a single hitch, either at the church or 
during the reception. The stately rooms of the Washing¬ 
ton Square house were not overcrowded, the food was 
of the very best, the string orchestra did its duty almost 
if not quite to perfection, and to crown it all, there was 
plenty of champagne. 

Not the shadow of a cloud marred Mrs. Hetherington’s 
serenity; Valerie laughed, care-free; Lynneth began to 
dismiss her own forebodings, her feeling that something 
was about to happen. Nothing did—not until all but 
those who meant to wait for the departure of the bridal 
couple had taken their leave, and the younger guests were 
dancing. 

Lisa had slipped away to change her gown. Lynneth 
was turning from one partner to another when the dis¬ 
creet Parkins appeared. 

“You’re wanted upstairs in the sitting room, please, 
Miss Lynneth.” 

Lynneth’s hands grew cold. It had come at last! The 
instinct she had tried to deny had not been mistaken, after 
all! Murmuring a word of excuse to Ashby Lawrence, 
her new partner, she went quietly out of the room and up 
the broad stairs where the landings were banked with 
palms and roses, and so to the pretty sitting room in which 
she had had her first talk with Valerie, only a very few 
months ago. But the months seemed like years. 

The door was closed. She tapped. Lisa’s voice re¬ 
plied ; “Come in!” 

They were there, the three she had known she would 
find. Valerie, standing by the empty grate, one slippered 
foot on the fender, the light of a shaded lamp playing 
over her rose-coloured gown, a smile curving her exqui¬ 
site mouth. On the other side of the room, as if he had 


78 


LOVE AND LIFE 


retreated as far as possible, Phil Armytage was barri¬ 
caded behind a chair, his weak, handsome face flushed 
and sullen. 

Neither of them held the centre of the stage. For once 
it was Lisa, not Valerie, who was the dominant figure, 
Lisa, divested of her bridal array, who stood in the mid¬ 
dle of the room, erect and coldly smiling, with triumph 
flaming in her pale and greedy eyes. Near her, the mag¬ 
nificent mink coat she was to wear over her going-away 
gown was flung across a chair. Her shower bouquet, all 
white orchids and bride’s roses and lilies-of-the-valley, 
was clasped lightly in both hands. 

“Ah! Here’s Lynneth now,” she said. And in her 
metallic voice rang the triumph flaring from her pale 
eyes. “Lynneth, do you remember my coming to your 
room one rainy morning about a week ago?” 

She had spoken quickly, as if to forestall the others. 

“Yes, I remember.” Lynneth’s delicate brows were 
lifted in surprise at the abrupt question. What did it all 
mean? 

“Valerie had left you a few minutes before, hadn’t 
she?” 

“Yes.” 

“She’d been lying on your couch?” 

“Yes.” 

“Did you see me—do anything ?” 

Memory of a stooping figure, a snatching hand, leaped 
into Lynneth’s mind. Instinctively she tried to avoid a 
direct reply. 

“What on earth are you driving at, Lisa?” 

Lisa’s thin lips tightened. “You’ll find out presently. 

What I want to know now is whether you-” She 

paused, with a deep-drawn breath; then went on firmly; 
“Whether you saw me pick anything up?” 

“Suppose I won’t tell you?” 

“That would amount to admitting you did. It would 
do quite as well.” 



WASHINGTON SQUARE, NORTH 


79 


Lynneth made no answer. Neither of the others had 
as yet spoken a word. 

“You saw me pick something white up off the couch 
and crush it in my hand, didn’t you ?” 

In the pause that followed, Phil Armytage gave a little 
gasp, sharply, as if he were stifling. Valerie was still 
smiling. From below came snatches of music, the gay 
voices of the wedding guests. High above them all rip¬ 
pled a girl’s clear laughter. They were enjoying them¬ 
selves, down there. 

“I won’t answer any more questions until I know why 
you’re asking them,” declared Lynneth steadily. 

“But you don’t deny you saw me pick up something 
white, like—a piece of paper?” 

Lynneth was silent. What was there to say ? For Lisa 
spoke the truth, and she knew it. 

“I’m glad your memory’s so good,” Lisa remarked sar¬ 
castically. She was silent a moment; her fingers tight¬ 
ened on her bouquet; her nostrils were pinched. Tiny 
white lines showed about them, and at the corners of 
her close-lipped mouth. She turned to Valerie; “Are you 
satisfied now that I really have got the letter ?” 

Still smiling, Valerie tossed her beautiful head. 
“Well, and suppose you have? What of it?” 

“Just this,” Lisa replied slowly, seeming to weigh the 
words and speaking with an almost incredible self-control. 
“Just this; the letter makes an appointment between you 
two, at eleven o’clock, when I will be safely out of the 
way.” 

Valerie hesitated. Lynneth, looking at her, saw that 
she was trying to remember the phrasing of the lost let¬ 
ter. Trying, and failing. Trepidation mingled with her 
defiance as she said; “And if it does? You know per¬ 
fectly well-” 

“Oh, yes! I know perfectly well that you haven’t— 
risked anything. You’re one of the people who never do 
risk anything, Valerie. You always take good care to 



80 


LOVE AND LIFE 


keep on the safe side. As a matter of fact,” she added 
with a deliberation that was nothing short of horrible, so 
unhuman did it seem, “as a matter of fact I believe I’d 
have more respect for you if I thought you’d risked— 
everything!” 

Driven at last to intervene; “Oh, see here now, Lisa!” 
Phil Armytage blustered, thumping the back of the chair 
behind which he had retreated; “See here now, you’re 
going altogether too far! You’re making a mountain out 

of a mole-hill. There’s never been anything but fun-’’ 

“Please remember there are other people in the house,” 
Lisa interrupted. 

Phil’s was the first violent gesture that had been made, 
the first loud tone that had been used. . . . 

“But I tell you there’s never-” 

“We’ll have plenty of time to discuss that—on our 
honeymoon.” Lisa again interrupted, with an accent that 
bit like acid. “Just now I only want you two, my very 
dear sister and my well-beloved husband, to know exactly 
where I stand and what I intend to do. You’ve enjoyed 
an extremely pleasant little flirtation, at my expense. Oh, 
I wasn’t as miserable as you thought! But I’d made up 
my mind to marry Phil, and I didn’t choose to be laughed 
at as the girl who let her sister steal her fiance. Now, 
you see, the cards are in my hands! And if you two ever 
do anything to—annoy me, either of you, I’ll bring suit 
for divorce against you, Phil, and name our dear Valerie 
as co-respondent. The newspaper accounts of the pro¬ 
ceedings would probably be rather—entertaining!” 

Phil’s breath came sharply, whistling between his teeth. 
He smoothed the back of his sleek head automatically, 
with a shaky, fumbling hand. 

On Valerie’s lips the taunting smile had stiffened into 

an ugly grin. She tried to speak- 

But it was Lynneth who cried out indignantly; “Lisa, 
you couldn’t! You—couldn’t! Your own sister-!” 






WASHINGTON SQUARE, NORTH 


81 


“Exactly. My own half- sister.” There was a kind of 
concentrated cruelty in her utterance of those four words. 
“That’s just it, you see. My own half- sister.” 

“But even if you tried you couldn’t do anything!” Phil 
exclaimed, furtively licking his dry lips. “You haven’t 
a shred of evidence! You can’t have, because there isn’t 
any. There never was anything but fooling! It was 
awfully silly, of course, and I know it wasn’t—wasn’t 
very nice, but still—but still-” 

If Lisa had interrupted him! If she had not let him 
go on with his pitiful exhibition! If she had shown only 
that much of mercy—or of weakness! But she who 
had waited so long, waited now until he stammered, and 
faltered, and stopped. And nothing but the occasional, 
uncontrollable twitching of her eyelids and the tense grip 
of her hands on the white bridal bouquet betrayed the 
strain she was under. 

Her thin lips twisted into a smile. 

“It’s evident,” she said with that same concentrated 
cruelty, “It’s evident you’ve both forgotten what was in 
the letter. Phil’s not as cool and cautious as you are, 
Valerie. Still, you must forgive the poor dear boy his 
infatuation! He oughtn’t to have written quite so affec¬ 
tionately, though. And it would be better for you both 
if he’d dated it more fully than with only the day of the 
week! You see that, don’t you? And now, perhaps you 
understand the sort of position you’re in?” She paused, 
as though awaiting an answer. 

In the silence, the distant music could be plainly heard. 
They were playing a lively fox-trot, and now the dancers 
caught up the rollicking tune and began to sing: 

My jazz girl, my razzle-dazzle jazz girl, 

Whoo-pee, honey, get the money. 

You’re my jazz girl! 

It seemed to Lynneth as if that idiotic song put the 



82 


LOVE AND LIFE 


final touch of delirium to it all. Her brain was auto¬ 
matically repeating the chorus: 

My jazz girl, my razzle-dazzle jazz girl- 

Then at last Lisa spoke again, spoke as if the words 
were an afterthought; “There’s something else, by the 
way. I’d advise you, my dear and very fascinating 
Valerie, not to engage yourself to any one without first 
consulting me. I might take it into my head to disturb 
your arrangements!” 

And again it was Lynneth who tried to intervene. Not 
with futile entreaties or yet more futile appeals to a mercy 
she knew to be nonexistent. Lisa held whip and curb 
in her hands now, and she meant to use them—pitilessly. 
But it might be possible to bargain with her. 

“Is there anything you'll take in exchange for that let¬ 
ter, Lisa ?” she asked quietly. 

Of them all, only Phil had raised his voice. And some¬ 
how the calmness of the scene, the apparent absence of 
excitement or of vituperation, added to its grimness. 
They were highly civilized people, people who controlled 
their voices, however much they might long to shriek 
aloud. Question, answer, statement of fact, had held a 
cruelty, a fear and a menace the more appalling for this 
very quietude. Beyond the closed door were servants, 
guests, relatives, no one of whom must be permitted even 
to suspect what was happening within. 

Again the chorus beat up from below: 

My jazz girl, my razzle-dazzle jazz girl- 

And again Lynneth spoke, low and steadily; “Is there 
anything you’ll take in exchange for that letter, Lisa? 
Any promise? Any—price?” 

An instant the pale eyes met hers. And in that instant 
Lynneth knew that if Lisa were the torturer, she was also 
the tortured. 




WASHINGTON SQUARE, NORTH 


A wave of laughter surged up to them. Gay voices, 
the patter of dancing feet, the rollicking, syncopated 
chorus: 


My jazz girl, my razzle-dazzle jazz girl- 

Slowly Lisa shook her head. The paradise plume on 
her hat waved as if in mockery. 

“No; none,” she said; and smiled. 

Her hatred was like vitriol; so colourless, so innocuous 
it had seemed, while held in bondage by her mastering 
will! Now, suddenly released, it seared and burned. 

Valerie, her arms on the mantelpiece, bowed her head 
upon them. Accustomed to an easy dominance, she could 
neither act nor speak. She was completely in the power 
of the half-sister she had ridiculed, amused herself by tor¬ 
menting. Tolerant as was the society in which she 
moved, even its indulgence would not overlook a public, 
newspaper-exploited scandal. And when the scandal was 
so particularly ugly-! 

Then Phil cried out, suddenly and shrilly; “I told you, 
Valerie, I told you we ought to break it off-” 

“Shut up, you fool!” Valerie snarled. 

And Lisa smiled again. 

A tap at the door made them all start guiltily. Mrs. 
Hetherington came in. 

“Lisa, darling,” she exclaimed, “every one’s beginning 
to wonder what’s keeping you ! Oh, I see! You’ve been 
saying good-by to Valerie and Lynneth. That’s sweet of 
you, dear, but now you really must come. Where’s 
Phil ?” 

For Phil had slunk ignominiously out of sight behind 
a portiere. 

“He’s ready. He’ll meet me in the hall. Just help me 
on with my coat, Valerie, will you?” 

Lynneth, springing forward, caught up the splendid 
garment. So much at least she could spare Valerie. . . . 





84 


LOVE AND LIFE 


Lisa accepted the substitution without comment. Her 
face was chalk-white, her mouth blue and a little sunken 
at the corners. But Lynneth knew there was no danger 
of any collapse on her part. What she planned she would 
carry through to the very end, no matter how bitter that 
end might be. 

“Thanks,” she said indifferently. “Now, mother!” 

The easy tears stood in Mrs. Hetherington’s eyes as she 
embraced her step-daughter. “Bless you, my darling! 
I hope you’ll be so happy—! We’ll miss you—” she 
choked, dried her eyes and went on; “Now, Valerie, kiss 
your sister once more, dear, then you and Lynneth run 
along. Her father wants to speak to her a minute.” 

Over the older woman’s head, Lisa and Valerie looked 
at each other. Lynneth’s nerves were quivering like over- 
taut violin strings. Another moment of this scene, this 
grotesque travesty, and they must snap .... There was 
nothing she could do, nothing she could say that would 
in the least mitigate the caustic irony of it all. 

Her gaze drew Lisa’s; and as she met the bride’s eyes 
her own filled with pity. 

And perhaps that was why Lisa showed an unlooked- 
for mercy. 

“Valerie and I have finished our good-byes,” she said; 
and added suddenly, with an odd softening in her harsh 
voice; “Good luck to you, little Lynneth!” 

The faint breath of emphasis on the pronoun brought 
a quick mist to Lynneth’s eyes. Lisa had shown herself 
cruel, ruthless, vindictive—but what had those two done 
to her? What kind of future could be in store for this 
bride who on her wedding day- 

The gayety below seemed to leap up at her like a living 
thing as she started to go down the stairs. 

An instant she recoiled. Then the traditions of a high¬ 
bred race—traditions of hospitality, of reserve, of the 
proud concealing of injury or pain—which were in her 
very blood, helped her onward. No one of all this crowd 



WASHINGTON SQUARE, NORTH 


85 


must suspect that anything unusual had taken place. 
With head held high and a smile on her lips she ran lightly 
down the steps, tossing gay replies to the eager questions 
as to whether bride and bridegroom had stolen away, es¬ 
caping the shower of rice and confetti prepared for them. 

“No, oh no, indeed! They’ll be down in a minute. 
Lisa’s all ready. Oh, Mr. Saunders, where did you get 
that dilapidated slipper?” 

Valerie, close behind her, accepted the offered shelter. 
In her quick and merry-sounding responses, Valerie’s 
silence passed unnoticed. 

A moment more and Lisa, followed by Phil Armytage, 
came hurrying down. On the landing she paused, lifting 
high her bouquet. And as the girls all stretched out eager 
hands to seize it, she flung it straight at Valerie. Instinct¬ 
ively, Valerie caught the flowers before they struck her. 
And seeing them in her grasp, Lisa laughed aloud. 

Then amid the conventional shower of rice mingled 
with cries of “Good-by!” and “Good luck!” she ran down 
to the waiting, ribbon-bedecked limousine, with Phil at her 
heels. In another instant they were out of sight. 


CHAPTER NINTH 


Lynneth found herself pausing every now and then 
with a kind of surprised awareness of her ability to laugh 
and talk and take an animated part in the protracted 
festivities. For the reception was followed by a dinner 
and theatre-party for the bridesmaids and ushers and a 
few of the guests. There could be no relaxing of her 
strained muscles, no dropping of her mask. Yet every 
moment she was wondering what would happen to those 
two whose married life had begun so strangely, and so 
gruesomely. 

Not until they reached the theatre, where lowered 
lights gave some protection, could she rest her weary 
nerves. While the other members of the party laughed 
and chattered, she leaned back in the shadows, closing 
her eyes. 

From his place beside her, Danvers Calhoun noticed the 
closed eyes and the drooping corners of the soft mouth. 
It was a natural reaction, he thought, after the excitement 
of the wedding. 

“Tired ?” he whispered gently. 

Lynneth opened her eyes. “A little. It’s been rather 
—rather an exhausting day.” 

“I know,” he murmured sympathetically. “You’re so 
sensitive! You’ve got yourself all worked up.” 

Lynneth could not help smiling. 

He took the smile for encouragement, and her nearness, 
the lowered lights, and the instinct which led him always 
to choose the effective, and what he believed to be the ex¬ 
pected, all impelled him to say tenderly; “You oughtn’t 
to be allowed to tire yourself out for other people! Flow¬ 
ers need care; they have to be protected by those who— 
who love them.” 


86 


WASHINGTON SQUARE, NORTH 


87 


If his similes were a trifle mixed, his meaning was en¬ 
tirely plain. He had come, that day, to a decision. 

“Oh, I’m no sensitive plant!” she replied lightly. “And 
if I were—well, the sooner I turn into a good tough weed, 
the better it’ll be for me!” Her thoughts had abruptly 
reverted to the riddle which would so soon demand an 
.answer: How was she to earn a living? 

“If you were in my garden-” 

The rest of the sentence was lost in a booming out¬ 
burst of the chorus. But it was enough to tell her clearly 
what she had of late begun to suspect—that here, if she 
chose, was an answer to the riddle of the future. 

This man beside her; was he her destiny? Was the 
normal woman’s lot she longed for to come to her through 
him? 

The “No” that rose instantly to her brain was as dis¬ 
tinct as it was unhesitating. Danvers Calhoun was not 
even a possibility. 

The lights flashed up. That jubilant chorus had been 
the last number of the act. There was a general stir and 
movement, .a shifting of places, making confidential talk 
impossible. Calhoun swore inwardly; if he could have 
had just a few minutes more! 

On his way homeward he forced himself to think 
things over with the calculating coolness he approved and 
did all he could to cultivate. He had made up his mind. 
He was going to ask Lynneth Frear to marry him. 

He was sure she would accept his offer, and that grate¬ 
fully. Wouldn’t it, frankly speaking, be quite a piece of 
luck for her ? She hadn’t any money; no one else, so far 
as he knew, wanted to marry her, and she couldn’t go on 
living with the Hetheringtons forever! If she wasn’t in 
love with him yet, that was only because she was very 
young and shy and—well, virginal. Which, after all, was 
one of the principal reasons why he wanted her. 

His thoughts returned approvingly to his talk with 
Ashby Lawrence that same afternoon. Walking beside 



88 


LOVE AND LIFE 


such a personage from the church to Washington Square 
had given him no small degree of pleasure. It was some¬ 
thing merely to be seen with Ashby Lawrence. 

“When they do do anything, the Hetheringtons do it 
well,” Lawrence had commented as they turned down 
Fifth Avenue. “That was an admirably arranged affair/’ 

“It’s funny how often weddings are bungled! They’re 
so much alike you’d think people could go through them 
with their eyes shut!” 

“They do, very often; then when they open them they 
get divorced. Even at that, I sometimes wonder how 
any man can have the nerve to marry one of these post¬ 
war debutantes. Or why,”—in a reflective tone—“he 
should want to!” 

“Same old reason, I suppose,” Calhoun suggested. 

“Love ? That word covers more emotions than charity 
does sins. But marriage implies some small amount of 
domesticity even in the most modern families, and domes¬ 
ticity with a pinch-beck cocotte doesn’t strike me as amus¬ 
ing. After all, the great advantage the girls men married 
had over the—er—the kind they didn’t, was that they were 
different. They provided novelty, a change. But this 
new generation seems bent on eliminating the difference!” 

“I agree with you. Marrying one of them must be a 
good deal like wearing second-hand clothing.” Calhoun 
was speaking more earnestly than he realized. The sub¬ 
ject was deeply interesting to him then, when he was col¬ 
lecting reasons for acting according to his inclinations. 
“I admit I wouldn’t enjoy wondering how many of the 
men who came to my house had taken joy-rides between 
dances with my wife! They’re all very well to play about 
with, these little girls, and you don’t have to think what 
you say to them—anything goes. But for marrying-!” 

“Most of them seem to me to rush to one or other of 
two extremes. They either try to behave as if they be¬ 
longed to a sort of neuter gender, or they emphasize their 
sex in the crassest possible manner. The American 



WASHINGTON SQUARE, NORTH 


89 


woman has never learned to be fast without being vul¬ 
gar; the risque isn’t her natural element, and when she 
gets into it she’s merely clumsy. Of course I’m an old 
fogy, but I must say I don’t grasp the modern girl’s point 
of view. When a man has no more respect for his wife 
than he has for himself—or not so much!—it’s a pretty 
poor outlook for the woman.” 

Calhoun wondered what Lawrence thought of Lynneth 
Frear. But though usually anything but a diffident per¬ 
son, he was oddly shy about mentioning her name. 

“Of course there are exceptions,” he remarked vaguely. 

Amusement shone in the older man’s eyes. He gave 
Calhoun a considering glance. The desire to manipulate, 
or at least affect human lives, strongest generally in those 
who have no children, was influencing him now. Little 
of the current gossip failed to reach him, and his memory 
was of the best. 

“Rare ones. Still, if I had a nephew—which I haven’t 
—and he’d listen to my advice—which he most certainly 
wouldn’t!—I’d counsel him to think about that charming 
little Miss Frear. She’s got brains, that girl, and she 
isn’t looking for a career. She’d help a man succeed! 
And there’s nothing of the-” 

“Pinch-beck cocotte?” Calhoun put in, quoting Law¬ 
rence’s phrase. 

“Exactly! Nothing of the pinch-beck cocotte about 
her.” 

All of which had given Calhoun a good deal to think 
of, at once confirming and expanding his original point 
of view. 

At bottom he was domestically inclined; and he was 
tired of bachelor quarters and cabaret suppers. Like the 
majority of his kind, he was intensely conservative in 
many of his ideas. He liked petting parties for himself, 
but he wanted his kisses to be the first to touch his wife’s 
lips. He was in many ways an entirely commonplace 
person. 



90 


LOVE AND LIFE 


As fragments of the afternoon’s conversation came 
back to him, he felt he had a right to congratulate him¬ 
self upon his choice. All the more because no one could 
say it wasn’t disinterested! And he could well afford to 
marry. The period of inflated rentals through which 
New York was then passing had caused the Land Devel¬ 
opment Company with which he was connected to flourish 
exceedingly. Not rich, as riches are reckoned on Man¬ 
hattan Island, he would be perfectly able to take an 
apartment, if not on Park Avenue, at least in an adjacent 
street, and later, when the children came, perhaps a 
house in a really first-class suburb. That sort of thing 
would be useful for publicity purposes, now that he had 
about decided to go into politics. A pretty wife and a 
couple of babies were splendid assets for a would-be— 
say, member of Congress? or Senator? Lawrence, a man 
of the world who knew what he was talking about, had 
called Lynneth Frear “charming.” And marriage with 
Mrs. Blazius Bleecker Hetherington’s niece would firmly 
establish his still somewhat precarious social footing. 

But that Lynneth should instantly have determined to 
refuse him was something which, had he known it, would 
have amazed a good deal more than it would have dis¬ 
tressed him. For the beggar maid to decline King Co- 
phetua’s offer and prefer the high road is against all 
romance and precedent. Yet this was precisely what 
Lynneth had decided to do. 


CHAPTER TENTH 


She passed a wakeful night, thinking intently, not of 
Calhoun and the offer she now felt tolerably sure he in¬ 
tended to make her, but of the question as to how and 
where she was to earn enough money to provide herself 
with such unromantic necessities as food and shelter. 

She wanted, was determined to leave the Hethering- 
tons’, and at once. The great luxurious house had be¬ 
come odious to her, gruesome, hate-haunted. . . . 

She shivered. Though low tones had been substituted 
for shrieks, threats of disgrace for the less subtle ones of 
poison or the knife, the smooth outward appearances pre¬ 
served in every scrupulous detail, the horror was not les¬ 
sened, but rather increased. 

For Lisa was prepared to murder, not Valerie, but 
Valerie’s good name; Valerie had poisoned, not Lisa, but 
the future which might have brought Lisa contentment 
at least, if not happiness. 

Better a garret where the air was clean, than her dainty 
room in this hate-haunted house! Better scrub floors for 
a living than go on breathing an atmosphere of lies and 
vengeance and abominable intrigue! 

Lynneth, it should be added, had never lived in a gar¬ 
ret, nor had she ever scrubbed a floor. But she was abso¬ 
lutely sincere, for all her youthful grandiloquence. 

During the night the wind shifted, and in the morning 
a drizzling, half-hearted sort of rain had begun to fall. 
Lynneth was not sorry to see it. Mrs. Hetherington de¬ 
tested wet weather, and never went out on a stormy day 
except to keep some important engagement. 

She waited until half-past eleven, by which hour she 
knew the daily interviews with cook and butler would be 

91 


92 


LOVE AND LIFE 


over; then went straight to her aunt’s sitting room. She 
had no planned phrases ready to explain her going; she 
only knew that go she must. No feather-pillow resistance 
should turn the edge of her decision this time! 

And once inside the room, words came with a rush. 

“Dear Aunt Honoria, you know I told you quite a 
while ago I wouldn’t be able to stay on here after—after 
the wedding. I can’t be dependent on you and Uncle 
Hetherington. You’ve been most awfully kind to me— 
I’ll never forget—but I can’t—I can’t go on this way any 
longer. I’ve just got to support myself!” She paused, 
breathless. Her cheeks were very pink, her eyes full of 
light. 

“I was about to send for you.” Mrs. Hetherington’s 
serenity was unimpaired, though covered, so to speak, 
with a coating of frost. “I want to talk to you very 
seriously indeed.” 

“I’m sure I can get some sort of secretarial work,” 
Lynneth went on, a little less quickly. She felt the chill 
in Mrs. Hetherington’s manner, but was too intent on 
her own resolve to let it immediately check her. “I’ll 
take a furnished room somewhere; Miss Hilary says lots 
of girls no older than I am are living alone in New York. 
I’m sure I’ll be all right! It isn’t right, though, for me 
to go on living here like this when I feel—when I haven’t 
any money.” She had changed the end of that impetuous 
sentence, and changed it just in time. 

Mrs. Hetherington’s gesture barely escaped being im¬ 
patient. “I’ve told you before, Lynneth, that your Uncle 
Hetherington and I would arrange everything for you. 
You certainly can’t live alone in New York, no matter 
what some girls may do. They’re not girls of your class. 
I want to speak to you about something else, something 
I heard only last night, which has—er—grieved me very 
much.” 

Lynneth flinched. Who could have tolcl Aunt Honoria 
—and what had they told her? No one knew of the 


WASHINGTON SQUARE, NORTH 


93 


scene in the sitting room! Or had some one, some busy¬ 
body, overheard in spite of the lowered voices? Poor 
Aunt Honoria! It would hurt her so! She’d prided 
herself on never discriminating in the least between the 
two she called her daughters, and to know how they really 
felt towards each other—! Oh, poor Aunt Honoria! 

She was still standing. She went a step nearer to Mrs. 
Hetherington, her own affairs forgotten. “I’m so sorry,” 
she said distressfully. “I hoped you’d never know! It 
was mean to tell you! I’m dreadfully sorry!” 

“Fm sorry too, Lynneth,” Mrs. Hetherington said 
coldly. “I thought I could trust you. I’m sorry I was 
mistaken.” 

Lynneth stared at her, too surprised to be angry. 
‘‘Mistaken? What in the world do you mean?” 

“Don’t make matters worse by trying to prevaricate, 
Lynneth. I know very well that nowadays young girls 
do a great many things that would have been considered 
most improper when I was a debutante, but I did think 
that you, my niece and a guest in my house, would at 
least have a sufficient sense of decency to consider my 
wishes, as well as your own reputation.” 

Lynneth’s eyes darkened suddenly. “Any one who 
dares to say I haven’t, lies!” 

Mrs. Hetherington immediately hedged. Tears, de¬ 
nials, evasions, she had expected, and been prepared for; 
but not this white flame of anger. 

“Of course you understand, my dear, that I don’t for 
a moment believe you’ve ever been more than rather wild, 
and—er—foolish. You’re very young and inexperi¬ 
enced-” 

“Please explain.” Lynneth’s voice was steady, her 
slight young body erect, held taut as a drawn bow-string. 
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Please ex¬ 
plain.” 

“I will.” A sense that she was, not dominating, but 
being dominated, treated, not as an infallible judge, but 



94 


LOVE AND LIFE 


as an accuser who might and would be called to account, 
was rousing Mrs. Hetherington’s sluggish indignation. 
“Mrs. Gresham came to me yesterday, just after Lisa left, 
and told me she’d seen you go for a—a joy ride, I believe 
they call it, between dances with a man named Tressel. 
She said you were away with him for nearly an hour, 
alone, in a public taxi, after midnight. Now what have 
you to say for yourself?” 

What could she say? It was as if a door had been 
slammed in her face. What could she say? How could 
she defend herself without breaking her promise to 
Valerie? 

And just then Valerie came in. 

Lynneth’s first feeling was one of release, and relief. 
But the relief lasted only for a moment. What saved her, 
would bring trouble to Valerie, and sorrow to Valerie’s 
mother. She instinctively expected Valerie to tell the 
truth, because it was what she herself would have done 
in Valerie’s place. 

“What’s the matter?” asked Valerie, instantly appre¬ 
hensive. 

“Shut the door, darling, and I’ll tell you. I don’t want 
the servants to hear.” Mrs. Hetherington paused im¬ 
pressively. “I think you ought to know why your father 
and I have decided to send Lynneth straight to Miss De 
Witt, instead of taking her to Aitken with us, as we’d 
intended.” 

“What’s Lynneth done?” 

“Weren’t you at the Vances’ the evening she went off 
in a taxi with a man named Tressel?” 

A just perceptible stiffening of Valerie’s exquisite fea¬ 
tures, a settling of her lovely face into mask-like lines. 

“Yes. I was there.” 

That was all she said. It was enough. 

“Why did you let her go ? You know how people talk!” 

Valerie relaxed into a chair with a shrug of her grace- 


WASHINGTON SQUARE, NORTH 


95 


ful shoulders. *Tm not Lynnie’s governess! She knew 
what she was doing, all right.” 

Lynneth was looking at her. She knew it, and kept her 
head averted. 

‘‘Valerie! You don’t mean to tell me Lynneth has been 
in the habit of doing that sort of thing!” 

Another shrug. “How can I be expected to know all 
about other girls’ goings-on ?” An instant, and then, con¬ 
scious despite her averted glance of the scorn in those 
accusing grey eyes, she added hastily; “I never knew 
Lynnie to behave that way before or since. It was—it 
was probably all Mr. Tressel’s fault!” 

There was a splendid hint for Lynneth’s benefit! She 
could excuse herself nicely by using it, thought Valerie 
with considerable satisfaction. 

And Lynneth turned from her then, as one turns from 
that which is unclean. 

Very quietly, though every vestige of colour was gone 
from her cheeks and her hands were tightly clenched in 
the effort to keep her self-control, she said; “It wasn’t 
in any way Major Tressel’s fault. I—suggested going. 
He went because I—because I wanted him to.” 

She could not break her promise, and Valerie didn’t in¬ 
tend to tell the truth. But no matter what happened, 
Geoffrey Tressel shouldn’t be blamed! 

“Really, Lynneth, I’m surprised at you!” Mrs. Heth- 
erington declared weakly. She was finding herself curi¬ 
ously unable to cope with the situation. This pale girl 
with the steady eyes and proud bearing—it seemed ridicu¬ 
lous to suppose that she could or would have asked any 
man to go on a midnight drive with her! A joy ride! 
In the bottom of her heart Mrs. Hetherington was sure 
she hadn’t done anything of the kind. There must have 
been a reason of which she knew nothing—and didn’t 
want to know anything. There lay the real crux of it all, 
in the fact that she wanted a valid excuse for getting rid 


96 


LOVE AND LIFE 


of Lynneth, not by acceding to the girl’s frequently re¬ 
peated desire to go to work and earn her own living, but 
by putting her in the safe keeping of the austere Miss De 
Witt. So far as Mrs. Hetherington herself was con¬ 
cerned, she liked Lynneth, and thought her a convenience; 
it was Valerie’s suggestion that Lynneth was a nuisance 
to her, which influenced Valerie’s mother. 

“I don’t think there can be any more question about my 
going. You understand, of course, that I shan’t stay here 
any longer.” 

“I’ll send word to Miss De Witt-” 

“I’m not going to Miss De Witt.” 

“Your uncle and I are your guardians, Lynneth. 
We’re responsible for you, and you must do as we say.” 

“No. I’m sorry this has happened, Aunt Honoria. 
I’ll never forget how kind you were to me. But I can’t 
take anything from you when you think such—such 
dreadful things of me. There was some money left from 
the sale of the house. Please use it to pay for my clothes 

and all, and if it isn’t enough I’ll try-” Suddenly, 

sharply, her voice broke and the tears came. “Oh, why 
couldn’t you trust me?” she cried; and ran out of the 
room. 

— • 

That appeal was too much for Mrs. Hetherington, a 

selfish and self-centred woman, not a callous one. Almost 
she went after Lynneth, would have gone after her in¬ 
deed, had not Valerie’s drawl checked the generous 
impulse: 

“Poor little Lynnie! Being found out has upset her 
dreadfully!” 

Valerie had been a great deal with Lynneth; Valerie 
must know exactly how Lynneth had been behaving, 
Mrs. Hetherington told herself comfortingly. But 
twinges of compunction troubled her, especially when at 
luncheon Wilbur announced: 

“Miss Frear won’t be down, madam. She says she’s 
got a headache, and don’t want nothin’ to eat.” 




WASHINGTON SQUARE, NORTH 


97 


Mrs. Hetherington sighed faintly. Why hadn’t Mrs. 
Gresham held her tongue? Then there wouldn’t have 
been any of this fuss! It wasn’t over yet, either. She’d 
have to have another talk with Lynneth, by and by. Oh 
dear, what a nuisance it all was! 

She never dreamed that while Wilbur was making her 
excuses, Lynneth was tiptoeing downstairs, carrying her 
tightly packed suitcase. 

Holding her breath, she softly opened the heavy hall 
door. The smallest, teeniest noise might betray her. She 
wasn’t going to let them send her off to prison at Miss 
De Witt’s! And her ideas of the law were hazy in the 
extreme. She didn’t know what powers it might or 
might not give her guardians. But this she did know: 
once out of the house and established as a self-supporting 
woman, even the law wouldn’t find it easy to bring her 
back again! 

Softly, with the utmost gentleness, the heavy door was 
permitted to swing to behind her. 

She was free! 

At the top of the short flight of steps leading to the 
sidewalk she paused an instant. The pavements were 
still dark and glistening with the recent rain, but over¬ 
head the sky was blue, and the white clouds were scurry¬ 
ing to shelter before a brisk wind, like naughty children 
running from a nurse. Where she stood was damp and 
shadowy, but beyond, over the Square, the sun was 
shining. 

With a quick lift of her head and a straightening of 
her slender shoulders, she went swiftly down the steps 
and round the corner. 





BOOK II 


LIVINGSTON PLACE 


« 
















BOOK II 


LIVINGSTON PLACE 


CHAPTER FIRST 

The day had turned into a deceptively mild one, with 
a hint of spring in the air. One shoulder sagging under 
the weight of her heavy suitcase, Lynneth clambered into 
a Fifth Avenue ’bus. The bag was a nuisance. She 
couldn’t carry it around all afternoon! But what to do 
with it? She remembered hearing of some one checking 
and leaving a suitcase at the Grand Central. She got out 
at Forty-second Street, and went to the station, where 
she disposed of her burden. The surmounting of the 
small difficulty gave her a delicious sense of capability 
and confidence. 

She was going straight to the little book-shop on a side 
street in the Fifties near Madison Avenue, where she 
hoped to see Joan Hilary. Joan would help her to find 
work, would at least tell her where and how to look for 
it. The soft moist breeze and pale gold sunshine made 
walking a delight. She went lightly and quickly forward, 
hastening up Madison Avenue in the daffodil yellow of 
the early April afternoon. 

The little book-shop “At the Sign of the Broken Spin¬ 
dle” occupied the basement floor of what had once been 
a handsome private house, now in the transition stage of 
being rented out piecemeal. The front room, designed for 
a breakfast room, had a large open fire-place, a tall 
wainscot, painted white, and a bow window. Big, leather- 

101 




102 


LOVE AND LIFE 


covered chairs, quaint side-lights, tables strewn with 
magazines and reviews, made it very different from the 
usual shop. Madge Ayres, Joan’s partner, was busy with 
a customer. Lynneth had recognized the well-shaped 
head, slightly frosted at the temples, the low voice and 
courtly manner, before Ashby Lawrence turned and saw 
her. 

“Miss Frear, by all that’s delightful!” he exclaimed. 
“I hadn’t hoped to see you again before you went to 
Aitken.” 

“I’m not going to Aitken. I’ve left Washington 
Square!” Lynneth impetuously declared; and stopped. 

He had noted the dark lines under her eyes, her look 
of excitement. Experience had given him some skill in the 
adding of two and two. He had divined her suppressed 
apprehension when she left him the previous afternoon, 
and now her exclamation confirmed his suspicion that 
something was wrong. He wanted to help her, to do 
something for her; but how could he ? 

Repressing her impatience, and turning to that blessedly 
safe topic, the weather, Lynneth chatted for a minute or 
two. Then asked Mrs. Ayres when she could see Miss 
Hilary ? 

“Why now, if you like. She’s in the office. If you 
don’t mind going straight through the passage ?” 

Lynneth hurried through the pantry and former 
kitchen, now the receiving and packing rooms, to the 
small extension in the rear, once the laundry, now digni¬ 
fied by the title of private office. As she neared the 
door it was suddenly flung open, and a young woman 
dressed in the extreme of the then prevailing fashion, 
with the shortest of skirts, the sheerest of stockings, and 
the largest of ear-pads, bounced out in a state of intense 
indignation. 

She had omitted to close the door, and as Lynneth 
approached: 


LIVINGSTON PLACE 


103 


“Hello!” exclaimed Joan Hilary. “Where did you 
drop from? Thought you were all off to Aitken.” 

“I’m not staying with Aunt Honoria now,” Lynneth 
explained. ‘Tve left Washington Square, and I’m look¬ 
ing for something to do.” 

Joan thrust out her lower lip, twisting her lank 
body sidewise on the chair. “Career?” she demanded 
brusquely. 

Lynneth’s eyes twinkled. “No; a job.” 

“Thank God!” Joan remarked succinctly. “If you’re 

sure you’re not a neglected genius- Look here! What 

can you do ? Run a typewriter ?” 

“Oh, yes ! Only I’m afraid I’m not very fast.” 

“Then for goodness’ sake sit down over there and see 
if you can decipher my scrawl! Just fired that wooden¬ 
headed gum-chewer you saw go out. Part of our busi¬ 
ness is fixing up special lists of books for people, and 
damned if she didn’t send one headed ‘Elimination of the 
Child’ to a female with three Pekes and no kids, who 
wanted to study up on educating the Chinese!” 

Lynneth laughed. And when Lynneth laughed, her 
eyes became full of tiny dancing lights. She had pulled 
her gloves off, and in an instant the typewriter began to 
click. Joan’s writing did look as if a couple of belligerent 
sparrows had inked their feet and fought all over the 
paper, but Lynneth was used to handling her father’s 
large correspondence with celebrated illegibles. Her 
knowledge of books, too, helped her greatly. 

As soon as she had finished, Joan took one look at the 
work, dropped her tortoise-shell eyeglasses, and de¬ 
manded abruptly; “See here! How’d you like to stay on 
with me? I warn you, it isn’t a job; it’s a hodge-podge! 
No eight-hour business about it! You’ll have to be ready 
to do any old thing that needs doing, whether it’s looking 
after customers, making out bills or delivering bundles— 
isn’t much of that, just warning you—emergencies will 



104 


LOVE AND LIFE 


happen! May go bankrupt any minute, and the pay’s 
rotten. Want to try it?” 

“When shall I begin? Now?” 

“Good girl! Go to it! Strong on figures?" 

Lynneth shook her head. “Not a bit.” 

“Neither am I.” Joan thrust out her lower lip medi¬ 
tatively. “Tell you what!” she exclaimed cheerfully; 
“add up those accounts and see what result you get! 
/’ve had three!” 

It was after five o’clock when Lynneth finished her 
work, and suddenly remembered she had nowhere to sleep 
that night. She said a little diffidently; “I’m afraid I’ll 
have to go now. I must hunt up some sort of lodging. 
Do you know of any—any hotel that isn’t too dreadfully 
expensive ?” 

“Good Lord, child! You don’t mean to say you’ve been 
figuring away there when you haven’t anywhere to go? 
Come home with me and I’ll put you up on a sofa for 
the night. Then tomorrow you can start househunting.” 

Lynneth appreciated the delicacy which asked no ques¬ 
tions. She explained a little—as much as she could with¬ 
out telling Valerie’s secret; “I had to leave Washington 
Square all of a sudden. I—I sort of quarreled with 
Aunt Honoria. She thought I’d done something horrid, 
and—and I couldn’t stand it.” 

Joan nodded. “Bring anything with you?” 

“I left my suitcase at the Grand Central.” 

“Well, run along and get it, and meet me at my place.” 

Lynneth had barely left the shop when Joan’s telephone 
rang. Ashby Lawrence was on the wire. 

“Is that you, Joan? Joan, I’m rather bothered about 
little Miss Frear. There was something wrong in Wash¬ 
ington Square yesterday afternoon. I don’t think any one 
else noticed it-” 

“I did! I'm keeping Lynneth with me. She’s all 
right.” 



LIVINGSTON PLACE 


105 


Lawrence hesitated. “Is there anything I can do ? It’s 
so difficult-” 

“No. She wants to earn her living, and as good luck 
would have it, I was able to give her a job. There’s been 
a row in the Hetherington mausoleum. Thought there 
would be, some day.” 

“Well, the Hetheringtons can take care of themselves, 
but the girl’s as innocent and helpless as a kitten-” 

“She’s got a good level head on her shoulders, just the 
same! When did you take to being a squire of dames, 
Ashby ?” 

“Squire of children would be more like it in this case! 
You’ll let me know if there’s anything I can do?” 

Her quick ear noted the slight stiffening of his tone. 
She frowned a little. “Of course I will, old thing. Good 
night!” 

She was biting her lip as she hung up the receiver. 
Would she ever learn to control her tongue ? 

After dinner in a nearby tea room, Lynneth and Joan 
spent the evening making up a list of “Furnished Rooms” 
for Lynneth to investigate next day, Joan acting as cen¬ 
sor. It was a long list, and when morning came Lynneth 
started out optimistically, in spite of fog and the drizzling 
rain brought by a cold north-east wind. 

Any one who has ever tried to find inexpensive quar¬ 
ters in a large city knows the kind of experiences she had. 
It was late in the afternoon; she had climbed miles of 
stairs and interviewed innumerable landladies when, 
chilled through and so tired she could have sat down and 
cried, she wearily ascended the chipped and crumbling 
stoop of a dingy brownstone house on one of the side 
streets just off Livingston Place. It was one of those 
plaintive houses which, having sunk listlessly through de¬ 
grees of steadily lessening gentility until they have at 
last reached those lowermost depths whose sign is a “Fur¬ 
nished Rooms” card in the front parlor window, seem to 




106 


LOVE AND LIFE 


be helplessly waiting for some one to be kind enough to 
come along and pull them down. On this dismal after¬ 
noon of dense grey fog, limply dissolving at times into 
mizzling rain, when all the world seemed wet and shiver¬ 
ing and generally wretched, No. - Livingston Place 

was dreariness itself. 

A woman of indeterminate age, with a pair of nickel- 
rimmed spectacles astride the bridge of a pinched red 
nose, sandy hair twisted into a tight, aggressive knob, 
and a waist and skirt of rusty black, which looked as if 
they had been made from the scantiest possible amount 
of material, opened the door, eyeing her suspiciously. 

Yes, she had advertised, she sourly admitted. No, the 
room wasn’t rented. Yes, it could be seen at once. 

The room was at the top of the four-story house. Lyn- 
neth sighed involuntarily, then rallied her courage. She 
must find a place! Determinedly she faced the long 
flights of stairs permeated with the complex odours in¬ 
herited from many generations of meals, toiling up and 
up after her loud-breathing conductress, from the car¬ 
peted first to the oil-clothed second, and then to the bare 
boards of the third. 

At last the landlady opened a door. Lynneth knitted 
her delicate brows, staring about the small comfortless 
room with its streaked and ugly wall-paper—cabbage 
roses on a mustard-coloured ground—single chest of 
drawers covered by a coarse, red-bordered towel, one 
straight-backed chair, wooden wash-stand holding a 
much-nicked basin and pitcher, and humpy, creaking bed. 

It was cheerless enough, in all conscience. But it was 

spotlessly clean, and some of the rooms shown her-! 

Moreover, it had possibilities. Her home-making instinct 
awoke. Fresh curtains at the dormer windows, books 
on the shelves by the bed, the purchase of a few yards 
of chintz, perhaps eventually a rug on the painted, choco¬ 
late-brown floor—it would be fun to fix it up! 




LIVINGSTON PLACE 


107 


Not hours, but months seemed to have passed since she 
had left Washington Square. 

Her face reflected her thoughts; and the suspicious eyes 
behind the spectacles softened as they watched her, ex¬ 
actly as Ashby Lawrence’s worldly-wise ones had so often 
done. 

“How much is it?” she asked. 

The landlady hesitated, glanced shrewdly at the well- 
cut coat and skirt. “Eight dollars a week.” 

Lynneth shook her head. “I’m sorry. I can’t pay so 
much.” 

Again the landlady hesitated. “Would you be per¬ 
manent, miss?” 

“Why, yes—I think so.” 

“Well, then—we might say—six?” 

So in less than forty-eight hours after her abrupt de¬ 
parture from Washington Square, Lynneth was provided 
with the two great necessities—a roof over her head, and 
a job. She was surprised at her own good fortune; had 
she been a little less inexperienced, she would have been 
dumbfounded. 


CHAPTER SECOND 


When Lynneth suddenly departed from Washington 
Square, she left a note for Mrs. Hetherington. Later on 
she sent another note, telling where she was and what 
she was doing. But no word came in reply. 

It was Ashby Lawrence who told Calhoun of her 
changed circumstances. A few days after she had as¬ 
sumed the role of general utility woman “At the Sign 
of the Broken Spindle” he stopped in on the pretext of 
wanting some novels for a sick friend and found her 
there, shyly efficient and very much at home. Mrs. Ayres 
had gone to lunch, and Joan was interviewing a sales¬ 
man in her private office. Being the only customer pres¬ 
ent, Lawrence permitted himself to indulge his slightly 
cynical curiosity. 

‘Tve missed meeting you around,” he said, glancing 
through one and another of the gayly bound volumes she 
brought him. “When are you going back to Washington 
Square? Not until Mrs. Hetherington returns from 
Aitken ?” 

Lynneth shook her head. She looked very small and 
slim, childish almost, in her quaint little grey gown, but 
there was plenty of determination in her firm chin and 
steady eyes. 

“I’m not going back at all,” she replied briefly. Then 
added; “I was only there for a visit. I’ve my living to 
earn.” 

Lawrence glanced at her speculatively. From the soft 
dark coils of hair on the top of her little head to the tiny 
buckled shoes on her slender high-arched feet, she was 
as different as possible from the traditional business 
woman. That anything so dainty should go down into 

108 


LIVINGSTON PLACE 


109 


the dust of the arena seemed to him thoroughly in¬ 
congruous. 

“IPs a good bit of a change, isn’t it?” he remarked 
tentatively. 

The dancing lights shone in her eyes as she smiled. 
“It’s a new experience, and I like experiences. I’m will¬ 
ing to try anything—once!” 

Something in her fresh, unspoilt youth, something in 
her bright eager courage, made him temporarily dissat¬ 
isfied with his chosen part of amused spectator, voluntar¬ 
ily standing aside from the game. 

“You’re right,” he said slowly, “you’re altogether right 
not to be afraid of experiences. It’s the empty life that 
is the unhappy life!” 

“Oh, but I am afraid!” Lynneth avowed frankly. “I’m 
not a bit brave, really. I get dreadfully scared, some¬ 
times ! But if you have to do things, it’s silly to make a 
fuss, isn’t it?” 

Another customer came in, and the talk was over. But 
brief as it had been, each took from it a phrase and a 
memory. Deep into the girl’s impressionable mind had 
sunk Lawrence’s words, “It’s the empty life that is the 
unhappy life,” and his look of regret as he uttered them, 
while he on his part never forgot that little lift of the 
head with which she had declared, “If you have to do 
things, it’s silly to make a fuss.” 

No, she wouldn’t make a fuss, he felt sure. Whatever 
happened, she would meet with a smile, and her chin up. 
But if Joan’s enterprise should come to grief and this ex¬ 
quisite young thing be forced out among the heedless cur¬ 
rents of the business world, a bit of finest porcelain tossed 

about amid pots of brass and of iron-? He’d hate to 

see her smashed! 

So when he chanced, a couple of nights later, to meet 
Calhoun in the promenade back of the parterre boxes at 
the Metropolitan, he made a point of speaking to him. 

“They tell me you’re going into politics! Tom Grant 



110 


LOVE AND LIFE 


of the Citizens’ League said they were thinking of put¬ 
ting you up in the primaries next fall. What’s the idea?” 

“Don’t you think it’s about time a few decent men did 
try to do something?” Calhoun, taken by surprise, fell 
back on a stock phrase. 

Lawrence smiled. “My dear fellow! Do you really 
think you can accomplish anything by getting on the 
Board of Aldermen, or going to Albany ?” 

“At least I can try!” 

“Why waste energy on a sure thing? This city of 
ours doesn’t want to be governed by honest men. Look 
what it did to Mayor Mitchell!” 

“You’re not much of an optimist, are you?” 

Lawrence chuckled good-naturedly. “I take things as 
they are. You can call that cynicism, if you like. Plenty 
of my friends do! Joan Hilary says I ought to be ma¬ 
rooned on a desert island. She’s always emphatic in her 
opinions, isn’t she?” 

“I’ve only met her once or twice at the Hether- 
ingtons’.” 

“Yes, of course. She’s some sort of connection of 
theirs. I wonder how they like her taking Miss Frear into 
the shop? I know poor old ‘Blazing Bleeck’ was horri¬ 
fied when she went into trade herself.” 

“I thought Miss Frear had gone to Aitken!” Calhoun’s 
surprise was unmistakably genuine. 

“Not a bit of it! She’s working in Joan Hilary’s 
bookshop.” 

Lawrence left it there, giving Calhoun a nod of fare¬ 
well, and turning to greet Mrs. Gresham. 

To say that Calhoun was dismayed, is putting it mildly. 
If he had been prepared to play Cophetua, it was with 
the tacit understanding that the beggar maid’s little bare 
feet should be quite unstained by the dust of the highroad. 

To take a portionless bride from No. - Washington 

Square North was one thing; to take her from the “Sign 
of the Broken Spindle” very decidedly another. 



LIVINGSTON PLACE 


111 


He was a prudent young man; he meant to succeed, 
and he did not mean that anything should interfere with 
his success. But he had a code of his own, and if he had 
committed himself-? 

But had he committed himself? That night at the 
theatre he had wished and intended Lynneth to take him 
seriously. Still, you never can tell about a woman! 

The inscrutability of the female is a comforting adage 
to the vacillating male. 

Calhoun decided to go and see Lynneth. Congratu¬ 
lating himself on his power of cool, unemotional judg¬ 
ment, he did not realize that he was yielding, partly to 
his own craving and partly to his belief that this was 
what Ashby Lawrence expected of him. He went to the 
“Sign of the Broken Spindle.” 

He had intended his coming to appear accidental, a 
“Why, Miss Frear!” sort of affair. But Lynneth was in 
the private office, struggling with Joan over the monthly 
accounts—a hectic matter which usually brought them 
both to the verge of nervous prostration—and M,adge 
Ayres was alone in the shop. Calhoun procrastinated as 
much as he could, but he was at an evident disadvantage, 
and Mrs. Ayres, a shrewd little woman for all her doll- 
baby face, soft voice and deprecating manner, contrived 
to make him purchase a number of expensive volumes 
he did not in the least desire. 

As minute after minute went by, and Lynneth still 
failed to appear, his longing to see her increased. Denial 
of her presence made it valuable. 

At last; “I was told Miss Frear was here,” he said 
stiffly. 

“She’s in the office with Miss Hilary. Will you take 
these with you, or shall I have them sent?” Madge Ayres 
replied coolly. Calhoun’s abstracted manner had piqued 
her. She wasn’t going to make things easy for him, being 
just old enough to resent abstraction on the part of any 
man. 



112 


LOVE AND LIFE 


She had failed to perceive that Calhoun's most pro¬ 
nounced characteristic was obstinacy. 

“Will you find out whether I can see her, please?" 

“I'm sorry. I'm afraid it wouldn’t do to disturb her," 
From pique, Mrs. Ayres had passed to antagonism. 

“When will she be at liberty?" 

“I haven’t any idea." 

“Tomorrow afternoon?" 

“It’s impossible to say. The business-" Mrs. 

Ayres stopped short as Lynneth opened the door. 

“Do you know what became of that extra copy of One 

Man’s View? Joan said she- Oh, Mr. Calhoun! 

How do you do ?’’ 

Her voice and manner were a disturbing surprise to 
Calhoun. She hadn’t started, she hadn’t blushed. The 
hand he took was neither hot nor cold. It didn’t tremble 
in the least; its clasp was as unemotionally cordial as that 
of a well-bred boy. 

Calhoun recited platitudes while trying to guess the 
riddle of her self-possession. That any girl should so 
receive a man she knew to have been on the brink of pro¬ 
posing to her, was against all his conventions. It is so 
difficult not to over-estimate one’s own importance in 
other people’s lives! 

But his innate stubbornness was aroused, and when 
Lynneth said; “I'm afraid I’ll have to ask you to excuse 
me now. I haven’t finished my work," his instant reply 
was, “When can I come to see you?" 

“Not at all, I’m afraid. I’m living in a rooming house, 
and there isn’t any place-’’ * 

“Can’t I come here, then?" 

Her reply was not encouraging; “We're usually pretty 
busy!" 

Here was further denial to increase his determination. 

“You can’t be busy all the time! I’ll stop in and take 
you out to tea," he almost threatened. 

“Well, some day, perhaps!” 





LIVINGSTON PLACE 


113 


It was a dismissal rather than an agreement. Before 
the door had fairly closed behind him she had put him 
out of her mind and gone back to Joan. 

“What the dickens have you been up to?” demanded 
Miss Hilary. Her usually smooth hair was in the wildest 
disorder. She had a trick of running her fingers through 
it when worried or perplexed, and now it looked posi¬ 
tively Bolshevistic. 

“Man came in and would talk,” Lynneth responded 
briefly, sitting down at her own side of the table. 

Miss Hilary snorted—no other word will express it. 
“My word! Way some of these imbeciles come in here 
and jaw, you’d think we’d nothing to do but listen to their 
asinine gabble!” 

“Madge sold him most of the books we’ve been trying 
hardest to get rid of. Trust her!” 

“What did he want with you, then?” Joan was still 
belligerent. 

“Oh, I used to see a good deal of him when I was 
playing around.” 

“So that’s it, then?” 

Lynneth looked up, smiling. “To a certain and strictly 
limited extent, that’s it.” 

“Meaning by which-?” 

“A good deal less than you’re imagining! There isn’t 
—oh, well, there isn’t anything serious.” 

“On your part, or his ?” 

“Both. Or at least—oh, you know how men talk!” 

Joan winced. But Lynneth wasn’t looking at her, and 
failed to see the wincing. 

After a second’s pause; “Implying I’m not to lose my 
female Figaro just yet?” asked Joan with resolute light¬ 
ness. 

“No!” Lynneth’s smile betrayed the tiny dimple that 
hid near a corner of her mouth. “Not unless you throw 
her out! Did you get that schedule checked up ? I’ve got 
to write to Fleming & Foster. Six of the ten copies of 



114 


LOVE AND LIFE 


The Right of the North they sent us are misprints. 
What gets into these publishers, anyway ?” 

And Lynneth grappled vigorously with a mass of cor¬ 
respondence in which she believed herself enormously 
interested. But what she really cared about was Joan, 
not Joan’s business. Intelligent, and fond of books, her 
work held her as much as anything of the sort could 
have done, but she was essentially a woman of affections, 
not of impersonal interests. By temperament as by train¬ 
ing, she was of those whose careers consist in serving, 
loyally and lovingly, the ambitions of another. Ashby 
Lawrence had been right in saying that Lynneth Frear 
would make an ideal wife for a public man. 

Joan and Joan’s affairs now claimed her devotion. 
Thrown constantly together, the attraction which had 
first drawn them to each other grew and strengthened 
daily. For Lynneth, to live without loving would have 
been like living in a room whose windows were never 
opened. And though there were times when they clashed, 
when Joan was irritable and Lynneth lost her temper, 
these were only surface disturbances, which passed even 
more quickly than they came. 

Madge Ayres, third member of the trio, regarded the 
business as a temporary expedient, and said so frankly. 
She was working for herself only until she could find 
some man to work for her. 

“I’ve tried romance,” she averred one morning, when 
she and Lynneth were alone in the shop. “Moonshine 
and roses and love in a cottage and all the rest of it. 
Ugh! The windows were draughty and the floors creaked 
and the chimneys didn’t draw, and I had to wash the 
dishes. Romance and grease are absolutely incompatible l 
You can be quite fond of a man in a Park Avenue apart¬ 
ment you’d perfectly abhor in a Harlem flat.” 

“But why go to either extreme?” inquired Lynneth 
conversationally, from her perch on one of the big tables. 

“Oh, it’s all very well for young things like you to talk. 


LIVINGSTON PLACE 


115 


my child! But one has to make hay while the sun shines, 
and I haven’t so very many hours of daylight left.” 

“Nonsense, Madge!” 

“Nonsense nothing! Only the speedy acquisition of a 
husband, plus a limousine and a French maid, will save 
me from becoming a walking fake with manufactured 
eyebrows and a transformation. No unattached woman 
can afford the comforts of middle-age.” 

“You’re positively mid-Victorian, Madge! Nowadays 
women can look after themselves, and afford to do as 
they please.” 

“Piffle, my dear, simply and entirely piffle! Outside 
of opera singers and movie stars, how many women make 
real money? A ten-thousand dollar salary for a woman 
is a thing to be mentioned with awe; for a man, it’s a 
commonplace. All this talk about economic independence 
only means that men are trying to sneak out of their one 
great duty—being useful to women. What else are they 
good for?” 

“I see!” Lynneth’s eyes were dancing. “You’re will¬ 
ing to sacrifice yourself in order to reclaim some erring 
man to his proper duties!” 

“Precisely! And my advice is, ‘Go thou and do like¬ 
wise !’ ” There was a strain of seriousness beneath the 
flippancy of her tone. 

Lynneth smiled, and did not answer. Her memory 
held a treasure-box, safely locked away. She waited, 
and knew that she was waiting—what need of more? 


CHAPTER THIRD 


April had gone. May was going, and still Lynneth 
heard nothing from the house on Washington Square. 
This silent ignoring hurt her. Though she could never 
think of that last interview without a flare of anger, she 
had not forgotten previous kindnesses. Then late one 
afternoon, as they were hurriedly putting things in order 
for the night, Mr. Blazius Bleecker Hetherington himself 
walked in on them. 

He gave a curt “How do you do?” to Joan who, lean¬ 
ing against one of the big tables, her eyeglasses on her 
nose and a cigarette between her lips, surveyed him criti¬ 
cally, and turned instantly to his former ward. 

“Well, Lynneth!” he exclaimed. 

Words, it was evident, were inadequate to express his 
feelings. His tone must endeavour to convey them. 

“Well ?” 

The girl’s reply was entirely noncommittal; neutral, 
rather than defensive. Hearing it, Joan’s muscles re¬ 
laxed and her eyes lost their look of anxiety. Through¬ 
out their still brief period of association, she had re¬ 
mained doubtful of Lynneth’s basic strength. Now she 
had no more fears. Lynneth’s was that rarest sort of 
power—the power to refrain from speech, and to wait. 

“What have you to say for yourself?” Mr. Hethering¬ 
ton demanded. The phrase might have been truculent; 
it was almost an appeal. 

Lynneth softened instantly. “Only what I’ve said be¬ 
fore—that I’m sorry things happened as they did, and 
I’ll never forget your kindness. Don’t go, Joan,” she 
added. 

Joan’s long limbs slumped into a chair. She very much 

116 


LIVINGSTON PLACE 


117 


wanted to see the scene played out, and her quizzical eyes 
were bright with interest. 

“We’re sorry, too, your—your Aunt Honoria and I. 
We’ve talked it over, and decided that perhaps there 
wasn’t—er—sufficient allowance made for your youth and 

inexperience. We-. In short, I’ve come to take 

you back to Washington Square.” 

“It’s very kind of you, but-” 

“We’ll say no more about that unfortunate affair, Lyn- 
neth, or about Miss De Witt. The less such unpleasant 
things are discussed, the better. And I’m sure it was 

entirely the fault of Major Tressel-” 

Lynneth interrupted him instantly. “I won’t have 
Major Tressel blamed. What he did was done for— 

for me. I don’t intend to listen to a word-” 

“Well, well, we won’t say anything more. Perhaps 

after you’ve been back a while-” 

Lynneth lifted a protesting hand. “You’re very gen¬ 
erous ; but I’m not coming back.” 

“You’re not coming! You’d rather stay— here?” 

For all his surprise, he did not realize half of what 
the choice implied. Before Lynneth’s eyes two pictures 
sprang; her bare little room up under the roof of the 
shabby house on Livingston Place; the dainty, chintz- 
hung bed-chamber which had been hers in the Hethering- 
tons’ home on Washington Square. And for a moment 

she was tempted-. It was soft and warm, luxurious 

and safe and very effortless, the existence now offered 
her. Yet how could she accept it? 

All her future hung in the balance, and she knew; it. 
All her future, to be decided in a breath. . . . 

Her hesitancy was only for an instant. Joan had per¬ 
ceived it; not so Mr. Hetherington. 

“Yes,” she said quietly. “Yes, I’d rather stay here.” 
Mr. Hetherington’s mind was too self-righteous to be 
entirely clean. He had been quite sure that Lynneth 
would jump at the chance of returning to Washington 








118 


LOVE AND LIFE 


Square. The one credible reason he could see for her 
refusal gave him moral shudders. 

“I’m amazed at you, Lynneth,” he said severely, very 
conscious of the moral shudders—so thoroughly con¬ 
scious of them that he could easily disregard a concomi¬ 
tant sense of relief. He had done and was doing his duty 
as he saw it. ‘Tm very much amazed! I don’t intend to 
argue the matter. Once and for all, are you or are you 
not coming back with me to Washington Square? Re¬ 
member, you’ve got to decide permanently. Yes, or no?” 

Again, and for a bare flash of time, Lynneth hesitated. 
The choice lay clear before her. Safety, ease—with a 
sense of opprobrium attached; or else, risk—and clean 
air. “Don’t be afraid of experience. It’s the empty life 
that is the unhappy life.” Ashby Lawrence’s words 
leaped into her thoughts. But there was more than fear; 
there was dishonour. She could not buy luxury at the 
price she must pay should she return to Washington 
Square—and Valerie. 

She lifted her head, and her gravely enquiring eyes 
met Mr. Lletherington’s pale ones. 

“No,” she said. And there was neither faltering nor 
any sign of dismay in voice or eyes. “No; I can’t come 
with you. It isn’t possible. I’m sorry, but—it isn’t 
possible.” 

He bowed to Joan, took up his hat, and left the little 
shop without another word. He was a good man, and 
he felt that he had scrupulously fulfilled his duty. 

He went home, and solemnly warned his wife and 
daughter to have nothing to do with the girl who wilfully 
insisted upon going her own way; a way, he was sure, 
which departed far from the path of rectitude. For to 
his mind, a wish for liberty on the part of girl or woman 
could mean only a desire for license. He was a very 
good man. 

But among Joan’s thoughts the interview had placed 
an insistent question; “What about Major Tressel?” 


CHAPTER FOURTH 


It must be admitted that there were moments during 
the following year when Lynneth wished it might have 
been possible for her to decide differently. When her 
back and eyes ached from long hours spent over the type¬ 
writer or wrestling with accounts; when the stifling 
nights came, and she tossed feverishly on the creaking 
bed in the little room under the tin roof, while a basin 
and pitcher seemed a more than usually inadequate sub¬ 
stitute for a porcelain tub; when she rose early on dark 
■winter mornings to hurry through a scamped breakfast 
and hasten up dreary streets to the office behind the shop 
where the electric lights burned, she longed for the cush¬ 
ioned luxury of the house on North Washington Square. 
Moreover, she had been genuinely fond of Mrs. Hether- 
ington, and it was a hardship never to see her. 

In a couple of very stiff legal communications, Mr. 
Hetherington had made his accounting as Lynneth’s 
guardian, turning over to her, now that she was of age, 
the bundles of worthless stocks, as well as the gilt-edged 
bonds in which he had invested her capital of four thou¬ 
sand dollars. And to his credit be it said, he so manipu¬ 
lated the figures as to make Lynneth believe he had de¬ 
ducted the money spent on her while she was in his house, 
though he really turned her small inheritance over to 
her intact. Having thus formally washed his hands of 
her and her affairs, he let it be understood that their re¬ 
lations were at an end. 

As the months slipped away and the life of North 
Washington Square retreated further and further into 
the background, it began to seem, not unreal precisely, 
but like something belonging to another existence. Yet 

119 


120 


LOVE AND LIFE 


not altogether; for once, in the early twilight of a winter 
afternoon, she caught sight of Valerie coming out of an 
obscure little restaurant near Irving Place. Valerie did 
not see her; she had turned to speak to the man behind 
her—Phil Armytage. 

And Lynneth was more than glad she had not gone 
back to the stately house on the North Side of Washing¬ 
ton Square. 

On the whole, she was happy as well as busy, though 
she still had to count every penny. Little by little, she 
had transformed her room. No one would have recog¬ 
nized it now for the cheerless place she had entered less 
than a year ago. With a step-ladder and some small as¬ 
sistance from the much-amused Joan, she had herself re¬ 
papered the walls in a soft shade of grey, and given the 
woodwork a fresh if slightly uneven coat of white paint. 
She had made muslin curtains for the windows, a pretty 
chintz cover for the chest of drawers. Books, and some 
Japanese lilies growing in a dark green, pebble-filled bowl, 
gave the finishing touches to her little domain. 

Her energy and enthusiasm won, first a grudging, then 
a warm approval from Mrs. Wiggins, her landlady, who 
actually went so far as to remove a comfortable, if de¬ 
cidedly shabby easy chair from the all but sacred first 
floor front, and add it to the room’s scanty furnishings. 
Lynneth promptly and deftly re-upholstered it, and as 
Mrs. Wiggins reluctantly admitted; “Nobody’d a-believed 
it could a-looked so well!” 

Her friendship with Joan, the congeniality of tastes 
and instincts and reserves which made their companion¬ 
ship as easy as it was unsentimental, was an excellent 
thing for Lynneth, checking her tendency to over-idealize 
those she loved. Brusque, matter-of-fact Joan refused to 
be idealized, and had a way of abruptly jerking the more 
romantic Lynneth back to earth, occasionally bumping 
and even bruising her in the process, secretly hoping 
thereby to lessen her sensitiveness. The two worked 


LIVINGSTON PLACE 


121 


smoothly together, and the business prospered, though the 
first of every month, when the rent had to be paid, was 
still a dreaded time. 

There was little leisure for play, but Joan often took 
Lynneth to the Associated Arts Club, an organization of 
women writers, painters and craft-workers, then occupy¬ 
ing an old-fashioned house just east of Irving Place—a 
veritable haven for the hard-working women among 
whom Lynneth soon made many acquaintances. It was 
here that Joan, whose lazy bearing cloaked a vast amount 
of energy, first put forward her pet cooperative scheme. 

This was the projected leasing and doing over of an 
old-fashioned, elevatorless apartment-house by a little 
group of people who could trust one another to eschew 
those things which make the average low-priced flat a 
purgatory to the well-bred poor—dirt, with its attendant 
vermin, execrable songs shrieked out hour after hour 
by third-rate talking machines, an all-pervading smell of 
grease, onions and boiling cabbage, the screaming of 
shrill-voiced women at their own and one another’s un¬ 
ruly offspring, plus the interminable racket of the afore¬ 
said offspring. It so chanced that the real-estate develop¬ 
ment company of which Danvers Calhoun was a mem¬ 
ber, steadily expanding its interests, had lately added that 
of the cooperative apartment, and to it the committee ap¬ 
pealed for estimates and advice. Calhoun himself took 
the matter in hand. 

He had visited the bookshop often, btit intermittently, 
partly because his own affairs absorbed him, partly be¬ 
cause he had been out of town a good deal. And he 
couldn’t make up his mind. He wanted Lynneth; but 
did he want her enough, now when she had so evidently 
broken with the Hetheringtons ? As the apartment-house 
plan advanced, he caught himself using it as an excuse 
for seeing her; and then suddenly realized that she was 
avoiding him. 

Joan saw something of all this, and believed she under- 


122 


LOVE AND LIFE 


stood a good deal more than she actually did. It was the 
added weight of other reasons, however, which urged her 
to ask bluntly, one Saturday evening when they were 
having dinner together in a certain quaint little tearoom 
on West Twenty-eighth Street: 

“See here, Lynn; why wouldn’t you go to the theatre 
with Mr. Calhoun tonight?” 

Lynneth hesitated. “I didn’t—exactly—want to.” 

“He’s been around a good deal. Seems a pretty decent 
sort.” 

“I don’t know much about men,” Lynneth replied, 
slowly stirring the sugar in her tiny coffee cup. Even to 
Joan she would not have admitted how carefully she 
studied the army orders in the newspapers. Even to 
herself she did not admit that she was waiting. . . . 

“Who does? They don’t know such a lot about each 
other!” Joan ground her cigarette butt on her saucer, 
and rose with a little yawn. “As for Mr. Calhoun, I 
wish he’d get a move on the dead-and-alive Trust Com¬ 
pany that has charge of the old house! Come home with 
me and I’ll show you the revised plans.” 

Lynneth assented eagerly. The home-making instinct 
which had changed the dreary little room under the roof 
into one whose attractiveness even the pessimistic land¬ 
lady acknowledged made her revel in this apartment- 
house project. Not that she expected to share in it. Her 
interest was completely vicarious; but she delighted to 
pore over the plans. 

Yet when they reached Joan’s sitting room, which had 
an air of being cleared for action, so devoid was it of all 
but the strictly utilitarian, the older woman did not pro¬ 
duce a single blue-print. She only dropped into a well- 
worn arm chair and lay there staring at the pot of white 
hyacinths on a low table by the window from which, look¬ 
ing at an angle, one could see the trees in Gramercy Park. 
Except the flower, there was not an article in the room 
which wasn’t all too obviously useful and in use. The 


LIVINGSTON PLACE 


123 


few magazines and many books, the stalwart table and 
the lamps whose green shades were as plain as those in 
any office, were there for service; nothing else. 

Suddenly she turned to Lynneth, and all but demanded; 
“What are you going to do about Mr. Calhoun ?” 

Had any one else asked it, Lynneth would have re¬ 
sented the question; but it was Joan who spoke. She an¬ 
swered ; “Do ? Nothing.” 

“Don’t you—like him ?” 

Lynneth nodded. “I like him very much,” she said. 
“I like him very much—but not enough.” 

Joan pushed her chair out of the circle of light cast by 
the reading lamp. Her right hand quickly covered her 
mouth. Lynneth had become familiar with that gesture 
during the last few weeks. 

After a pause; “Sure you’re not laying too much stress 
on the ‘enough’?” Joan asked thoughtfully. 

“Is that possible ? Oughtn’t it to be the biggest 
thing-? Is it honest or decent to put up with any¬ 

thing less ?” 

“You’re a dyed-in-the-wool romantic, Lynn! Life’s 
not ideals and romance. It’s compromise and tolerance.” 

Lynneth seized the chance to escape the personal. 

“You’re not usually so enthusiastic about tolerance, 
Joan!” 

Joan thrust up her lower lip. “All right if it isn’t over¬ 
done ! But we’ve had the virtue of looking at things from 
the other fellow’s point of view hammered into us till 
we’re almost ashamed to have a point of view of our own. 
National mania, that’s what it is, and it’s playing hob with 
our moral backbone. Awfully easy to sneer at the Puri¬ 
tans, but you’ve got to hand it to them for being strong 
enough to have definite ideas of right and wrong and 
not go sloshing about in a mental fog! Nice mixture 
of metaphors for you!” Then, again suddenly changing 
her tone, she added seriously; “Every human being needs 
a code to live by. It’s one of the biggest difficulties we 



124 


LOVE AND LIFE 


moderns have to face, trying to find reasons for what 
we instinctively feel are necessary standards of right and 
wrong. We don’t want to go back to the old ‘Thou 
shalt nots’—too much fear in them. But what are we to 
put in their place?” 

“You’re right,” Lynneth agreed. “We’ve got to find 
a new working code. Now it’s all restlessness and uncer¬ 
tainty and indecision.” 

Suddenly Joan rose, snapped off the lights, drew up the 
blinds and pushed aside the curtains. The pale, faintly 
silvered light of the spring moon stole softly in, laying a 
broad bright path across the centre of the room, beyond 
which on either side were shadows dense as smoke. Joan 
crouched in one corner of the cushioned window seat, 
long legs drawn up, arms clasping her knees, her face 
just outside the path of silvery light. 

There was a long pause, a pause during which it 
seemed as if intangible forces were slowly gathering, as 
electricity seems to gather in the air before a storm. 
Then out of the darkness Joan spoke: 

“What do you want to do with your life, Lynn? What 
do you want it to give you? Do you know?” 

Something in Joan’s tone, something in the atmosphere 
her mood shed about them both, indescribable yet power¬ 
ful, made her question not merely serious, but compelling. 
And Lynneth, sensitive always to any current of emotion, 
took it as it was meant, not attempting subterfuge or eva¬ 
sion. 

“Yes; I do know.” A moment more, and she went on; 
“I’m old-fashioned, I suppose. I never dreamed much 
about becoming famous, and having a great career, and 
all that sort of thing. I’ve liked working with you, and I 
like the business. But I’ve had a year of it now, and I 
wouldn’t want to go on with it, always. I’d like to be 
taken care of. I’m tired of taking care of myself, and 
being independent and all the rest of it! I want to take 


LIVINGSTON PLACE 


125 


care of some one else. I don’t want to be independent! 
I want-” She caught her breath, and was silent. 

Again Joan spoke, out of the darkness. “Independ¬ 
ence and freedom are good, but—they’re lonely.” 

“Horribly lonely! I’m not like you and some of those 
Associated Arts women, Joan; I’m not sufficient to my¬ 
self. I want”—the words came rushing now, as they had 
come during those hours of the night when she challenged 
her personality, asking what she could and ought to make 
of herself, her few short years of mortal life—“I want a 
home of my own, and love, and—children.” 

Another silence. And to each woman it seemed as if 
a Presence had entered the room, and stood there in the 
shadows close beside her. And Lynneth’s heart rose ex¬ 
ultant, and cried out a name and a greeting. For the 
Presence she saw was one of youth and vigour and splen¬ 
did promise. And Joan’s heart grew heavy with dread, 
and a coldness like the breath of a glacier chilled her 
blood. For the Presence she saw was one whose coming 
meant denial, and darkness, and frustration. 

Then in spite of her own dreaded doom of the spread¬ 
ing shadow and the icy cold, Joan gave of what she had. 
And if the value of a gift be measured by its cost to the 
giver, that which she bestowed was precious indeed. 

“You’ve one great advantage, Lynn,” she said slowly, 
her broad capable hands tightening their clasp about her 
knees. “You’ve one very great advantage; you under¬ 
stand yourself. You know you’re neither a genius nor a 
born celibate. You need marriage, not so much to make 
you happy, as to bring out the best that’s in you. All 
women aren’t like that. There are some who must and 
should live out their lives alone, and some who can do it 
if they have to, and get along well enough. But all 
women worth a brass farthing are creators. They’ve got 
to make something, bring forth something, or their very 
souls shrivel and dry up. It may be a book or a garden 



126 


LOVE AND LIFE 


or a picture, a tea room or a child. Mistake most people 
make is fancying that for all women the something must 
be children.” 

“For me, it is,” replied Lynneth softly. 

“Yes. Oh, I’ve watched you, Lynn! You’ve a great 
big talent for loving, and believing the best of those you 
love. Don’t think you’re conscious of it, but you expect 
a lot of them! Whether Danvers Calhoun can measure 
up to you and what you need, I don’t know. Only, there’s 
this about it; he loves you. It may not be a—well, a 
grande passion. Such love’s a good bit rarer in real life, 
I fancy, than it is in romances and poetry! But since he’s 
nothing to gain by it, it must be sincere.” She paused 
again. “Don’t put that love aside, Lynn, unless you’re 
very sure! Love isn’t offered every day. It may mean 
your best chance to make your life what you want it to 
be; even your one big chance.” 

“I’ve thought of that, lately. I like him and I might 
even—come to care—in a way, perhaps. But it doesn’t— 

it isn’t-” She broke off there and added, wistfully 

and with a perfect simplicity; “How does one get to be 
quite sure of—of that, Joan? Is it-” 

Again she broke off. She did not so much think as 
become penetrated, through and through, with the mem¬ 
ory of an hour of instinctive confidence, instinctive re¬ 
liance and understanding. The knightly shadow-shape 
was very near, was oddly and inextricably herself, a part 
of herself. . . . 

For an instant Joan’s hand covered her mouth in that 
gesture which had become habitual. Her husky voice 
sounded odd, curiously stifled; “I don’t know. I’ve never 
—never been in love with any one.” 

“And you were always perfectly sure you were best off 
as you were? You didn’t doubt or hesitate?” 

Another pause; the reply came harshly; “I never had 
the chance to doubt! No one ever was in love with me.” 

Lynneth bit her lip; and was silent. 




LIVINGSTON PLACE 


127 


“It is queer—unnatural almost, isn’t it?” Joan went on 
in the same harsh tone, reading Lynneth’s thoughts with 
all but uncanny clearness. “I suppose / must be queer, 
and—unnatural, somehow. I’m not so bad-looking, and 
I’ve lots of friends, but—There’s something wrong with 
me, something—lacking, perhaps! Oh, I don’t suppose 
I’m unique, but if I do belong to a class, a type, it’s one 
you almost never hear or read about. We’re the—un¬ 
wanted. And our pride makes us try to hide it, just as 
we’d try to hide any other sort of deformity. And when 
the everlasting reiteration of the one theme in every story 
we read and every play we see taunts us and makes us 
feel like lepers, we pretend it doesn’t, and smile, and 
make believe we’re like other women, and deceive each 
other, and pass each other by, and do our best never to 
let any one suspect we belong to the grey sisterhood-” 

“Joan!” 

“I don’t know why I’m giving myself away like this! 
I suppose we all have to talk to somebody, sometime. I 
don’t want you to feel sorry for me! There are com¬ 
pensations, lots of them. We escape any amount of 
agony, we outsiders! And I’ve had a good deal out of 
life. I like my work, and I’m one of the women who can 
—who can stand alone if they have to. But you—you’re 
different. You haven’t any business or professional or 
artistic talent, and you need affection as much as—as 
that plant there does water! At first I was just a little 
afraid you might be—one of us. And if you’ve nothing 
else, if you’ve never had anything else, it must be hard 
to die without ever having been—wanted.” 

Lynneth could find no words. Something of what it 
must have cost Joan to strip away the covering from this 
bitter secret of hers, her own pride enabled her to divine. 
The secret, whose very negativeness put it beyond the 
reach of sympathy! What could be said, what comfort 
offered, that would not seem facile, cheap, almost an 
insult? 



128 


LOVE AND LIFE 


The long lane of silvery light was shifting, shifting. 
Over that part of the window seat where Joan sat, the 
shadows were stealthily encroaching. A little more, and 
she would be entirely in darkness, untouched by even the 
outermost edge of all the splendour. 

It was Joan herself who ended the long silence, quietly, 
with a complete change of subject. 

“Did I tell you Madge was going away in June? She 
needs a vacation badly.” 

“So do you! You haven’t been looking any too fit 
lately.” 

“Oh, I’ll carry on all right over this summer, anyway. 
Afterwards, perhaps I’ll take a rest—a good long rest.” 

It was so dark now that Lynneth could not see the 
queer little smile hovering on Joan’s thin lips. 


CHAPTER FIFTH 


Ignorant though she was of the hesitations and re¬ 
coils which had so complicated matters for Calhoun, Joan 
was right in her summing up. He was in love, and dis¬ 
interestedly in love with Lynneth—to his own surprise 
and no small mortification. 

He had done his best to cure himself of his folly. 
Elected to the Legislature the preceding November, he 
had made his duties in Albany an excuse for long ab¬ 
sences from New York; but what good did these do, 
when on his return his rebellious feet took him straight 
to the little bookshop? He was deeply impressed by his 
own opportunities and importance; he presently discov¬ 
ered that other people were not, thereby proving himself 
of more than average intelligence. 

But Lynneth was an excellent listener. He could take 
her to dinner and talk about himself for hours, without 
her ever once tiying to interpose with talk about herself. 
Wherefore he thoroughly enjoyed her society. And there 
were many times when he couldn’t get it. 

During the first weeks after her departure from Wash¬ 
ington Square, Lynneth had scarcely thought of Calhoun. 
He had never won any hold on her imagination, and the 
incidents of that last evening she put aside. She had 
been over-excited, and he, no doubt, said more than he 
meant. But she liked him, and being interested in watch¬ 
ing almost all sorts of wheels go round, found the politi¬ 
cal difficulties he described especially intriguing. Then 
when in January Ashby Lawrence sailed for Italy in 
search of additions to his collection, Calhoun became the 
principal link between Washington Square and her pres¬ 
ent existence, could tell her what was happening in that 
social world out of which she had stepped. 

129 


130 


LOVE AND LIFE 


He it was who described to her how Lisa was horrify¬ 
ing the whole Hetherington connection by the extraor¬ 
dinary people she entertained at her apartment on Park 
Avenue. The latest ouija-board operator, the soon-to-be- 
deported anarchist, the soviet envoy, the dabbler in 
psychoanalysis, the sensation mongers of all kinds and 
both sexes were always welcome in her drawing-room, to 
which society went much as it might have gone to a me¬ 
nagerie or a circus. 

Then came the apartment-house project to throw them 
yet more frequently together. 

About this time, Lynneth took alarm, and began con¬ 
sistently to refuse Calhoun’s invitations. Her intentions 
were of the best, but had she been looking for one, she 
could not have found a more efficacious method of arous¬ 
ing his obstinacy and increasing his ardour. The thing 
refused was the thing he wanted. And her denials only 
made the game more interesting, gave spice to the ulti¬ 
mate victory of which he had never a doubt. 

Early in May, the long-drawn-out negotiations over 
the leasing of the building on Stuyvesant Park to the 
cooperative association were concluded. These difficulties 
ended, a whole crop of new ones sprang up and grew like 
weeds. Not one of the group but had definite ideas as 
to what ought to be done about the house in general and 
her own apartment in particular—ideas expressed at great 
length and with astonishing fluency. And as no two 
entirely agreed, there wasn’t any majority. 

“Whe-ew!” Calhoun ejaculated one evening, as Lyn¬ 
neth and he were coming from a meeting in the rooms 
of the Associated Arts Club. ‘T feel as if my head would 
burst! Let’s stroll round the park a while. I haven’t 
had a chance to talk to you for weeks, and it isn’t late.” 

“Joan—Miss Hilary will have her way in the end, 
see if she doesn’t,” Lynneth replied confidently, ignoring 
his last sentence. 


LIVINGSTON PLACE 


131 


‘T thought so too, at first. But now the husbands have 
come into it so strenuously-!” 

They had reached the corner of Irving Place, and he 
turned definitely to the right. If she wanted to decline 
the little walk he had suggested, she must make a point 
of it. 

“Why has Mr. Grant such an abounding passion for 
units, do you suppose ?” asked Lynneth lightly. She knew 
that if she vetoed his suggestion he would argue about it, 
and so increase its importance, minimized by a tacit acqui¬ 
escence. It would not be the first time they had strolled 
around Gramercy Park before he took her home. “He 
orates away about units of light and units of space and 
units of heat and units of expense and units of goodness 
only knows what else! I don’t believe he knows what 
he’s talking about half the time—and I’m sure the rest 
of us don’t!” 

They had come now to the little park at the upper end 
of Irving Place. The evening was just pleasantly warm. 
A fitful breeze rustled the young leaves daintily. From 
the small green square stole night-scents of flowers and 
shrubs and crushed grasses, the subtly delicious fragrance 
only darkness seems able to coax forth. Here and there 
a tiny fleecy cloud drifted leisurely across the sky, snow^ 
white against the deep clear blue. The slender crescent 
moon hung poised with an almost self-conscious pictur¬ 
esqueness above and a little to one side of the Metro¬ 
politan Tower, dominating even that glare of arc lamps 
below which made all but a very few of the stars invisible 
It is one of the deplorable things about city life, that it 
must for the most part be lived without the stars. 

Lynneth’s beauty-loving spirit absorbed it all with a 
keenness of delight which, for once, she felt no impulse 
to share with her companion. She wondered whether 
the moon looked just the same in California as it did in 
New York? Her faithful scrutiny of the army orders 



132 


LOVE AND LIFE 


printed in the newspapers had been rewarded that morn¬ 
ing by the sight of Geoffrey Tressel’s name. 

“Well, he has to do something to convince people he 
isn’t merely Mrs. Grant’s husband!” Calhoun was saying. 
“He’s not as accommodating as Armytage! Phil just 
tags along after his wife and doesn’t seem to mind at all,” 

Lynneth bit her lip. Twice again that winter she had 
seen Valerie and Phil together, both times in the neigh¬ 
bourhood of the obscure little restaurant. . . . 

Calhoun went on; “It isn’t as if he cared a great deal 
about her, either. If he did-” 

“It must be rather horrid to go through life as the tail 
to some other person’s kite!” Lynneth exclaimed hastily, 
and a little breathlessly. She had suddenly sensed what 
was coming; and she had an almost panicky wish to 
avoid it. 

“I wouldn’t mind—I’d like it—if it was your kite!” 

“Oh, don’t! Please don’t!” Lynneth’s protest re¬ 
sponded to his tone more than to his words. “I wish you 
wouldn’t!” 

It wasn’t a particularly encouraging beginning. He 
persisted stubbornly. 

“I must. I can’t help it. You know I love you!” 

She had done her best to stop him; but she liked him, 
and being only human she wasn’t impervious to the flat¬ 
tery of his avowal. Her all but cloistered early life had 
excluded suitors, and Joan’s friends were mostly women. 
Calhoun was the first man to pay her the supreme com¬ 
pliment, and though she wasn’t in love with him, there 
was an undeniable thrill in hearing him declare himself 
in love with her. 

“I want to marry you, darling, and get you out of that 
wretched little shop! I’m not as rich yet as I will be 
some day, but I can give you a good deal. And you know 
my ambitions! I believe I’m going far, and I want to 
take you with me.” 

The confident egotism of that declaration, its recurrent 



LIVINGSTON PLACE 


133 


C T,” its insistence on the material advantages it offered, 
jarred on Lynneth. She didn’t stop to analyze it, but she 
tried to draw away the hand he had seized and when he 
refused to release it paused sharply, turning and facing 
him, her pride of virgin freedom fiercely resenting even 
this faint foreshadowing of captivity. 

“Let go!” she exclaimed in sudden anger. 

Surprise loosened his clasp, and she wrenched her hand 
away—repenting her harshness the instant she was again 
at liberty. She didn’t want to hurt him! Remorsefully 
she looked up, straining to see his face through the soft 
darkness. It would be dreadful to make him suffer as 
men did in plays and poems! 

“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” she said tentatively. “I 
wish-” 

He had the good sense not to try to recover her hand. 

“Won’t you think it over, Lynneth ?” he pleaded. 
“You’re all alone—you haven’t a very great deal to look 
forward to! I can give you a home, and lots of pretty 
things, and—and you do like me a little, don’t you? It 
seems as if you must, when I love you so much!” 

“I do like you,” Lynneth replied instantly, compunc¬ 
tion mingling with her promptness. “I like you very well 
indeed, but ...” 

“Isn’t that enough?” 

“No. There’s too much risk-” 

“/'ll take the risk!” 

She shook her head; he went on obstinately: 

“I won’t give you up! I’ll be patient and wait, if— 
You’re not engaged to any one else?” 

“No—oh, no!” 

“Then give me a chance! Let me keep on seeing you. 
I won’t bother you, I won’t say a word—be kind to me, 
darling!” 

So he pleaded, heaping promises and protestations on 
one another. She might change her mind. Women 
often did! He couldn’t and wouldn’t accept her “No” 




134 


LOVE AND LIFE 


as a final answer. He knew the time would come when 
she’d turn it into “Yes!” 

Lynneth listened more and more unwillingly, her can¬ 
did brow wrinkling in naive but very genuine perplexity. 
Was she indeed sure? Was she perhaps discarding the 
substance for the sake of a radiant shadow ? Worse still, 
was she shrinking from responsibility and experience? 
“It’s the empty life that is the unhappy life!” 

A cloud obscured the moon; the faint breeze died away. 
A summer shower was coming up, but in the glare of the 
arc-lights the warning dimness was not noticeable. 

Lynneth spoke slowly, with a reluctance she did not 
fully understand. They were facing southward again. 
Behind them the tower lifted its brilliantly crowned head 
toward the stars; before them the garish glitter of Four¬ 
teenth Street winked and blazed. 

“I’m afraid of making you only more unhappy,” she 
said doubtfully. 

“You will, if you don’t let me see you often, and 
try-” 

“It doesn’t seem fair to you. The risk’s all yours.” 

In his heart he didn’t believe there was any risk. An 
irritating delay, certainly. But ultimate failure—oh, im¬ 
possible ! 

“Rubbish!” he almost laughed. “I’d be a pretty poor 
sort of lover if I wasn’t ready to risk my immortal soul 
for such a chance!” 

Somehow, that last phrase didn’t ring true. Yet ex¬ 
citement was tingling in Lynneth’s nerves. Pity, generos¬ 
ity, flattered vanity, the sheer delight of being loved urged 
her on to be, as he had said, kind to him. And she 
vaguely wondered whether this could really be the begin¬ 
ning, the first thrill heralding the coming of that of which 
she had so often dimly dreamed ? It didn’t seem possible, 
and yet- 

Just then, with a soft, reproachful little hiss, the big 
drops came down. 




CHAPTER SIXTH 


So by one of those minor ironies which swarm in life 
like germs in water, the first result of Lynneth’s first pro¬ 
posal was a pair of soaking wet feet and a heavy cold 
which developed into a mild attack of bronchitis. While 
it lasted, Calhoun kept her room full of flowers; but just 
as she was getting well he was obliged to start on a busi¬ 
ness trip which took him as far as Denver. 

The illness pulled her down. She came out of it pale 
and thin, and when in June the first heat wave struck 
the city, only force of will kept her from a collapse. 
Meantime, the renovating of the old apartment-house was 
well under way, and she spent some joyful hours choos¬ 
ing tints and wall-papers, a task in which she delighted, 
while to Joan it would have been merely a bore. 

They had had no more intimate talk on the subject of 
Danvers Calhoun. But that Joan had drawn her own 
conclusions was evident when she announced in her most 
matter-of-fact manner: “You know, Lynn, you’re coming 
with me when I move. I’ve five rooms. That’ll give us 
a bedroom and sitting room apiece, so we won’t be in each 
other’s way. Only have to share the bath and kitchen.” 

“But, good gracious, Joan, I can’t possibly afford-” 

“Pay what you’re paying now, if that’ll make your 
mind any easier! I may—may have to go away for a bit 
next winter. Business, of course. Got some books and 
stuff in storage, haven’t you ? Better dig ’em out. Then 
you’re going to the country to get a rest.” 

“I’m not going to do anything of the kind!” Lynneth 
protested vigorously. “I’m quite all right!” 

And it was only when Dr. Macneven tersely informed 
her that she could choose between a vacation now and a 

135 



136 


LOVE AND LIFE 


sanitarium in the near future, that she agreed to go away. 
Two questions instantly arose: Where to go, and how to 
pay for going ? 

Ashby Lawrence had returned to New York during 
Lynneth’s convalescence. Joan, a wrinkle between her 
straight broad brows, explained the situation to him one 
evening when he dropped in to see her. 

“Lynn won’t take tuppence from me,” she went on. 
“Fact is, I’m a bit hard up myself just now. But I don’t 
want her to dip into her four thousand.” 

“She hasn’t anything else?” 

“Only a bunch of stock not worth the paper it’s printed 
on!” 

“Some of it might be. Ask her to let me look at it, 
will you?” 

Joan’s hazel eyes lost their quizzical expression as they 
met his. The two were old friends, and sometimes under¬ 
stood each other very well. 

“You’re a mighty good sort, Ash!” she said quietly. 

A few days later he wrote that his broker had sold for 
twenty-five cents a share some oil stock for which the late 
Paul Frear had paid fifty-five dollars. He brought the 
certified cheque to the shop one afternoon, and found 
Lynneth and Joan discussing the demerits of various 
country boarding houses. 

“There’s a place Mrs. Grant used to go to,” Lynneth 
said, after thanking him warmly. “A house at Oakside, 
in the Catskills. She says it’s quiet and comfortable, but 
the prices have gone up to more than I ought to pay—• 
even now,” she added, smiling at Lawrence. 

He paused, thinking of the letter he had received that 
morning: 

“I’ll stay up here at West Hillsdale until I’ve put my 
notes in order and written my report for the Government. 
If you want a change, why not try this place for a while? 
I’m still at the Thornes’—the dear old things wouldn’t hear 
of my going anywhere else—but there’s a mighty decent 


LIVINGSTON PLACE 


137 


boarding house not far off, and it would do your sybaritic 
soul good to live at the rate of fourteen dollars a week!” 

By the time he had offered Joan his case and taken a 
cigarette for himself, Lawrence had made up his mind. 

‘Tve heard of a place that seems the very thing,” he 
began, striking a match. “West Hillsdale, they call it; 
cool, comfortable, and only fourteen dollars a week.” 

“Sounds promising,” commented Joan. “Go on!” 

Lawrence went on. For as he told himself with a 
shrug and a smile after the decision had been made, West 
Hillsdale air would certainly do Lynneth good! Of that, 
there couldn’t be the smallest doubt/ 

As the apartment-house would be ready when she re¬ 
turned to town, Lynneth packed her belongings and gave 
up the little room on Livingston Place which had been 
her home for over a year, thereby greatly distressing the 
pessimistic landlady, who darkly prophesied that she’d 
be wishing herself back again before long. 

“Mark my words, Miss Frear,” she averred in Cas¬ 
sandra-like tones, “mark my words, such schemes as 
them don’t never work! The good Lord ain’t meant 
women to live together. They’re born to quarrelin’ as 
the sparks flies up’ards. I’m a-goin’ to have them cur¬ 
tains you made all done up nice, an’ when you want to 
come back, Miss Frear, just you let me know, an’ I’ll get 
them that’s in the room out of it, an’ you’ll find it all 
fixed up for you as good as ever!” 

Lynneth’s impulse was to hug her, but hugging Mrs. 
Wiggins was like getting a seat in the subway during 
the rush hour—one of those things that simply couldn’t 
be done. She had to swallow hard, though, before she 
replied. She had grown fond of the place, attached to 
it by all those little threads of use and familiarity which 
can only be broken at the cost of a pang, no matter what 
the reason for severing them may be. 

Yet she had often felt very lonely, and she looked for- 


138 


LOVE AND LIFE 


ward to the time when she would join her friend in 
their new home. Her brain teemed with plans for mak¬ 
ing it the cosiest and most comfortable place in New 
York. Even Joan should love it, whose idea of home 
was a roof over her head and something to sleep on! 
It was Stuyvesant Park that mattered, Stuyvesant Park 
for which she was impatiently waiting. West Hillsdale 
was merely an interlude. 


BOOK III 

WEST HILLSDALE 




















BOOK III 


WEST HILLSDALE 


CHAPTER FIRST 

At four o’clock the sun was still hot on the unshaded 
portions of the road which wound like a thick white cord 
up what the frequenters of West Hillsdale always re¬ 
ferred to as “The Mountain,” and Lynneth was glad to 
make use of the lavender-flowered sunshade she had 
purchased in a mood of reckless extravagance. She 
didn’t intend to go far. The journey of the previous 
day, not very long in actual distance, but tedious with 
much waiting for trains and at the end a ten-mile drive, 
mostly up-hill, behind a pair of sturdy farm-horses, had 
tired her more than a little. And though in obedience 
to the doctor’s orders she had breakfasted in her room, 
the subsequent unpacking had proved a wearisome and 
back-breaking business. Restlessness, however, had 
presently sent her from the house, combined with a de¬ 
sire to get away from the dozen-odd of elderly women 
who rocked and did fancy-work and gossiped, seldom 
moving off the veranda. The road, winding forward in¬ 
vitingly, was a summons to adventure. 

The thought made her smile. Adventure—with the 
stray cow of whose possible presence she had been sol¬ 
emnly warned? Lynneth wasn’t in the least afraid of 
cows, but she had listened sedately while fat old Mrs. 
Rankin declared; “You must be very careful, my dear, 
very careful. It’s a positive disgrace, the way that ani- 

141 



142 


LOVE AND LIFE 


mal is allowed to go wandering around! Somebody- 
ought to speak to Mr. Thorne!” 

She sauntered along, often pausing to give leisurely- 
appreciation to the charm of the green countryside, lying 
hushed and drowsy in the slumbrous stillness of the 
summer afternoon. On her right the ground fell sharply 
away to the thickly wooded valley far beneath, whose 
closely clustering tree-tops looked almost like a meadow 
in the distance. Just across, on the opposite side of the 
declivity, rose that other mountain near whose summit 
was a famous sanitarium. To her left, evergreens sloped 
gradually upward, the earth beneath them brown and 
soft with layer upon layer of pine needles whose fra¬ 
grance gave an added pungence to the clean bright air. 

Passing the pine grove, the road plunged, breath¬ 
lessly, straight into a small wood, through which a tiny 
brook danced gayly, babbling to itself in cheeriest fash¬ 
ion as it skipped over smooth brown stones or slid be¬ 
tween green sedges and under the overhanging branches 
of the peering trees. Lynneth loved that little brook 
from the moment she first caught sight of it, so happy 
was it, so irresistibly mirthful in the way it chuckled 
over the secrets whispered to it by the trees and grasses. 
Leaning against a boulder by the roadside she stood 
watching it as it wreathed its undaunted way about the 
obstacles it was not strong enough to surmount, spar¬ 
kling back at every stray shaft of sunlight which reached 
It through the closely drawn guard of the jealous leaves. 
Very little of sunshine did it ever get, this small brave 
brook, but it made the most of that little. 

Lynneth glanced about, looking for a place to sit. 
But the mossy ground beneath the trees was soaking 
wet, and the boulder against which she had been lean¬ 
ing held a pool of rain-water in the hollow on top. A 
little further along, however, just beyond the wood, a 
tumble-down shack stood a few feet back from the road 
in the midst of a tangle of vines and bushes, grown over 


WEST HILLSDALE 


143 


what must once have been a small clearing. Towards 
this she turned. The cabin had long since been aban¬ 
doned, but the flat stone which had done duty as a door¬ 
step was still in place, dry and warm from the sun¬ 
shine that had streamed down upon it all morning, but 
sheltered now by the shadow of the decrepit structure. 

It seemed ideal and Lynneth congratulated herself 
upon her “find”—congratulated herself the more because 
she had Blackwood’s “The Lost Valley” tucked under 
her arm. Quickly and deftly arranging her short white 
linen skirt, she settled herself to enjoyment. The rus¬ 
tling of the leaves, the cheery murmur of the hidden 
brook, the faint, scarcely audible buzz and hum of innu¬ 
merable, invisible insects, made an harmonious accom¬ 
paniment to the strange and beautiful story. 

“I beg your pardon!” 

Lynneth jumped, so startled by the sudden interrup¬ 
tion that she dropped her book face downwards on the 
grass. A tall young man, bareheaded and deeply tanned, 
stood by the edge of the road, directly facing her. 

“I beg your pardon!” he repeated, starting forward to 
pick up the fallen book. And then—“Why, Miss Frear 1” 

“Major Tressel!” 

He took the intervening space in a couple of strides, 
and they shook hands warmly. Intuitively, each knew 
that the other was thinking of their former meeting, so 
brief and so eventful. Yet for the moment, both ig¬ 
nored it. 

Stooping to recover the ill-treated volume, Tressel 
smoothed out its crumpled pages with the instinctive care 
of the genuine book-lover as he went on; “To think of 
finding you here! What luck! I hope I didn’t scare 
you? That old shanty is simply chockful of wasps, and 
I knew you’d be stung sure as Fate if you stayed there 
long.” The grey-blue eyes twinkled suddenly, and a 
smile twitched the corners of the straight, strong mouth. 


144 


LOVE AND LIFE 


“I was, first day I got here. The plaguey things are 
so pestiferously affectionate !” 

The warm colour had risen in Lynneth’s cheeks; clear 
gladness shone in her frank eyes. 

“So if it hadn’t been for the wasps—!” she laughed, 
a little breathlessly. 

“If it hadn’t been for the wasps, I might have passed 
you by! Couldn’t see you well—too much sun in my 
eyes. The good Samaritan act certainly was rewarded 
that time! But to think of our meeting—here!” 

She understood perfectly all that last phrase sug¬ 
gested, rather than expressed. Could a greater contrast 
exist than that between the feverish atmosphere which 
had surrounded them once, and the exquisite peace of 
this sun-drenched afternoon? Their surroundings were 
different, quite different; but they themselves, and that 
which they both felt and of which they were both con¬ 
scious, were changed only in some small degree. The 
sense of complete and welcoming recognition they had 
had then was theirs now; a recognition beyond the mere 
customary one of face and form. 

All this was in her consciousness, more than in her 
thought. And her reply was entirely commonplace, en¬ 
tirely matter-of-fact. 

“I’m staying at the boarding house—Jenkins’, they 
call it—a little way down the road.” 

“Oh, yes, I know! I’m at the Thornes’, farther up 
the mountain. Their son Jim was a pal of mine. We 
were together on the Somme, and at Ypres. Jim went 
over in 1915, with the Canadians.” 

Without a suggestion from either, they had begun to 
move slowly up the road, side by side. The light shin¬ 
ing through her sunshade made a faint nimbus around 
the girl’s head. 

“I only came last night,” Lynneth said, “and of course 
I don’t know much about fhe people here, but down at 
the house they told me that a lot of the young men who 


WEST HILLSDALE 


145 


went away stayed away—they weren’t willing to go back 
to farming. How does your friend feel about it?” 

Tressel switched at some roadside weeds with the 
iron-tipped walking stick he carried. 

“Jim never did come back. He went West—in Flan¬ 
ders. That was what brought me here the first time— 
last summer. I’ve been traveling around ever since, 
studying up the airplane situation. Now I’m getting a 
report ready for the Government. I wanted a quiet 
place to work in, and the Thornes wanted me with 
them.” With an abrupt, yet deliberate change of tone, 
he added lightly; “You see, I’m killing two birds with 
one stone.” 

Instantly she changed her key to accord with his. 

“Hadn’t you better make it wasps?” 

He turned and smiled at her—that quick disarming 
smile of his, which was so much more of the eyes than 
of the lips. 

“ ’Twouldn’t be fair! I owe the wasps a debt of 
gratitude!” 

“Even the one that stung you?” she asked with a 
demure little twinkle. 

“That one especially! Without personal experience, 
I’d never have ventured a warning—mightn’t even have 
thought of one. And then you’d have been stung, and 
I don’t believe you’d have liked it!” 

“Are you reminding me you’ve twice been a friend 
in need? And that’s going some, as the boys say, con¬ 
sidering this is only the second time we’ve met!” 

“Is it only the second time ?” 

The exclamation was scarcely voluntary. The words 
seemed almost to have uttered themselves. . . . 

They had paused a moment to look down into the tree- 
clad valley, where the shadows were lengthening as the 
afternoon waned. All at once, the song of a bird sprayed 
the stillness with a shower of crystal notes. They stood 
listening, then went on again in silence. Tressel’s in- 


146 


LOVE AND LIFE 


voluntary question had opened a vista both were tacitly 
agreed not to explore—as yet. They did not precisely 
ignore it; rather left it there, to be entered at will, when¬ 
ever they should be ready. 

In a sheltered nook a wild-rose bush still bloomed. 
He picked one of the flowers and offered it to her. She 
fastened it in her belt with a smile of thanks. . . . 

Presently she asked; “Did you go out to the Coast 
next morning, as you expected ?” 

The question was a permission. 

“Yes. And you—what happened? Did you—suc¬ 
ceed ?” 

“Partly. You see, Valerie-” She stopped. She 

had been on the point of breaking her promise. “But I 
can’t tell you. I said I wouldn’t tell any one. Only— 
it was one of the things that made me go off on my 
own.” 

He looked down at her quickly. “On your own?” 

With a few light, quick strokes she sketched the little 
bookshop, its proprietors and patrons, while he listened 
appreciatively, once or twice flinging back his head and 
laughing with an almost boyish abandon. But the laugh¬ 
ter was due to an inward exuberance, rather than to any¬ 
thing she had to tell. 

As yet the ascent had been gradual, but now the wind¬ 
ing road rose sharply before them, steep and stony, 
with outcropping ledges of solid rock jutting forward 
at irregular intervals. 

Lynneth paused. She wasn’t very strong as yet, and 
the climb looked formidable. “I’ll have to turn back 
now. I didn’t mean to go so far, and it must be getting 
towards supper-time.” 

He glanced at his wrisf watch. “It’s only a little after 
half-past five, and you haven’t come far, really. It just 
seems so because it’s all new to you. But if you’re 
tired-?” 

“I don’t feel tired!” Lynneth’s inflection confessed 




WEST HILLSDALE 


147 


her surprise. “It’s this wonderful air, I suppose. I’ve 
been ill—that’s why I’m here. So I’ve got to be a bit 
careful.” 

It was not her habit to talk about herself, much less 
about her ailments. But to tell him things seemed so 
completely natural! 

He accepted what she chose to tell, without making 
it an excuse for questions. 

“That's too bad! Some other time, though- 

After you’ve reached the top of that rise the road goes 
straight on past some wonderful silver birches, and 
there’s another jolly little brook, and a tiny pond with 
an old wooden seat under a big tree. Jim Thorne and 
his brother made it when they were kids. The Thornes’ 
house is down that muddy lane we passed a moment or 
two ago, and a lot of the land round here belongs to 
them. You ought to see that brook! There are trout 
in it, and it’s fun to watch them jump.” 

“I’ll take a book up there some day.” 

“This one ?” He glanced again at the title. “I believe 
it’s the only thing of his I haven’t read.—Oh, I couldn’t 
think of letting you carry it!” as they reached the 
muddy road and she put out her hand for the volume. 
“It’s ever so much too heavy for you!” 

“Won’t you be late for your own supper?” 

“Oh well- Do you know, I believe this would be 

just the right story to read up there? It’s a—an un¬ 
spoiled, out-of-the-world sort of place. Lots of ferns, 
and wild flowers, and a whole family of chipmunks. 
You feel as if—well, as if Pan himself might come 
round the corner any minute!” 

“If it’s as alluring as all that, I’ll have to get up there 
some day!” 

“Some day—soon?” he insisted. 

“Yes.” She did not know that her voice had sunk a 
little. Nor did she question her own unadorned sen¬ 
tences. What did words matter? This which was hap- 




148 


LOVE AND LIFE 


pening was beyond all power of expression. That her 
conscious mind did not yet admit it, had no effect upon 
the truth. “And if Pan objects/’ she added gayly, “I’ll 
tell him I came to give nuts to the chipmunks. Wouldn’t 
that be a good way to get round him ?” 

The shadows were long now over the winding road. 
The sun was disappearing behind the trees, and the west, 
though faintly flushed, had not yet become a glory of 
crimson and of gold. But the promise of splendour was 
surely there. . . . 



CHAPTER SECOND 


When Lynneth awoke next morning, it was to the 
brisk pattering of rain against her window. A curtain 
of mist, fold on fold, veiled the valley; the road was 
all dark brown mud and water, the sky a dull, unhappy 
grey. Was there any hope of its clearing by afternoon, 
she wondered? If it didn’t, she couldn’t have her walk. 
And she didn’t want to stay in her room, or sit in the 
ugly “parlor” with the dozen women who were her 
fellow-boarders. They were very good and kind, but 
no one of them seemed ever to have been young, and 
their endless dissertations upon the servants they had 
employed and the illnesses they had had, were anything 
but exhilarating! Apparently the only persons under 
seventy anywhere in the neighbourhood were herself 
and Geoffrey Tressel. 

She smiled to herself, quite unconsciously, as she 
put fresh water into the glass holding the now somewhat 
faded rose he had given her. 

Was he thinking of her? Was he too wondering if 
the rain. . . . 

But goodness! She was forgetting the letter to Joan 
which must be written and sent by the one and only 
mail, which in this out-of-the-way place came and went 
with the utmost irregularity—whenever any one hap¬ 
pened to be going down to the village where the post 
office was, ten miles away. She began her letter at once; 
but innumerable anxious glances at the sky considerably 
hindered its progress. 

Yet the birds took her unawares when, just before 
noon, they began a hesitant chirping which presently, 
gathering courage, merged into song. Then a long, 

149 


150 


LOVE AND LIFE 


luminous streak cut straight athwart the grey of the 
west. And gradually the sun himself came smiling 
through the clouds, and the rain drops still clinging to 
the leaves began to sparkle, and even the puddles along 
the road beamed with delight, while hens clucked and 
wandering cocks crew lustily, as though trying to over¬ 
whelm, since they could not rival, the chorus of praise 
hymned by the birds. 

Lynneth’s spirits mounted instantly. Joy danced in 
her eyes, as humming a blithe little tune under her 
breath she ran downstairs and out on to the veranda 
for a breath of air before the one o’clock dinner. 

But the ground didn’t dry as rapidly as she had 
hoped, and when she came out ready for her walk, 
armed as before with book and flowered parasol, as well 
as with the cretonne bag holding the sweater she was 
knitting for Joan, she paused on the lower step, looking 
with dismay first at the road and then at her immaculate 
little white suede ties. The old ladies were all assem¬ 
bled, needles and tongues clacking as usual. 

“I’m afraid you’ll find it very bad walking,” remarked 
Mrs. Rankin, oldest and fattest of them all, in a tone 
of plaintive accusation. Mrs. Rankin’s habitual tone 
was one of plaintive accusation. If she asked you to 
pick up her ball of worsted she seemed to imply your 
personal responsibility for its impish persistency in roll¬ 
ing under her chair. 

“Not if you go up The Mountain!” exclaimed Mrs. 
Winters, who made it a point of honour to disagree 
with Mrs. Rankin. “Going down towards Hillsdale it 
may be wet”—a grudged concession to the obvious 1— 
“but take the other direction, and you’ll find it perfectly 
dry. I’d go with you myself if it wasn’t for my rheu¬ 
matism.” 

“I did think something of walking part way to Hills¬ 
dale, but perhaps I’d better take your advice and go up 


WEST HILLSDALE 


151 


The Mountain again,” Lynneth replied with a docility 
which won Mrs. Winters’ unqualified approbation. 

It was impossible to see for any great distance along 
the winding road, and she walked slowly, though her 
feet showed an unaccountable tendency to hurry, and 
she had to force them to hold to the leisurely pace they 
had kept so easily the preceding day. Here and there 
were puddles and patches of mud which had to be 
avoided, but she met with no real difficulty until the pine 
grove was passed, and she stood there where the road 
plunged into the little wood. Then she paused with an 
involuntary exclamation. At the edge it wasn’t so bad, 
but further forward-! And yet, wouldn’t it be pos¬ 

sible to get through by picking your way very carefully 
and walking on the stones from which the rain had 
washed their usual thin coating of earth? The brook 
seemed to call her, its voice no longer a murmur, but 
jubilant, full-throated. And she did want to see it rush¬ 
ing over the pebbles! 

In front and on both sides the mud was soft and 
deep. A large stone, flat on top, projected above the 
surrounding swamp, but it was a very long step, and 
she wasn’t sure she could reach it, except by jumping. 
If she only had a good stout walking stick instead of 
a sunshade! But she must make it somehow, or go 
back, and go back she wouldn’t. Let herself be baffled 
by a bit of mud? Not if she knew it! She took a long 
breath and was preparing for the jump when something, 
some instinct, made her look up quickly. Geoffrey 
Tressel was coming round the bend of the road. 

“Wait a minute!” he called. “Let me give you a 
hand! One, two, three- There!” 

An instant, and they were both beside the boulder, 
looking down at the rain-swollen brook. 

“You seem fated to come to my rescue!” Lynneth 
laughed. “They told me it wouldn’t be wet up this way 
—I don’t believe one of them has been so far in years!” 




152 


LOVE AND LIFE 


“It’s only the one bit that’s swampy. Further on it’s 
as dry as you please, and the view over the valley’s 
gorgeous. Come and look!” 

They went on, past the wasp-infested shack, and for¬ 
ward to where a break in the trees enabled them to look 
down, far, far down into the valley. 

lhat valley was not green now, but all white and pale 
grey, an infinite variety of pearl and snow and silver. 
For the hot sun was turning the moisture held there 
^nto mist and vapour, and these came seething up, like 
steam from some mammoth cauldron. Impossible to 
see into it through the thick, cirrus clouds of smoky 
vapour that swirled and eddied, thinning as they rose, 
melting away as they reached the clear upper air, rain- 
washed, golden with sunshine. Though a gay little 
breeze blew with coquettish fitfulness, only a very few 
touches of feathery white flecked the translucent blue 
of the summer sky. The fragrance of moist earth and 
of young growing things, grateful for the shower which 
had freed them from dust, was fresh and sweet and 
clean as no other scent ever can be but that of the sea 
itself. And save for the soft sibilant murmurings of 
the leaves and the chirp and twitter of the birds, not 
a sound broke the perfect stillness. An all-submerging 
sense of quietude and of awe stole over Lynneth, calm¬ 
ing her quick-beating pulses, removing all nerve-tension, 
smoothing out and soothing her too-active, questioning 
brain. In all her life she had never known such con¬ 
tentment, restfulness exquisite and complete. An an¬ 
cient phrase formed itself upon her lips; '‘The peace of 
God, which passeth all understanding . . .” 

Geoffrey’s eyes met hers; met and held them a 
moment. And neither spoke again for a long while. 

The steep rise at whose foot Lynneth had paused the 
day before was ascended in silence. They came pres¬ 
ently to the bench beside the pool of which he had told 
her and there sat down, still without the interchange 


WEST HILLSDALE 


153 


of a word. Yet neither had any fear that speech might 
mar their strange and perfect accord. It was not 
dangerous; but only—unnecessary. 

It came at last, came when an inquisitive chipmunk 
stole warily out from among the nearby sumach bushes 
and paused, waiting for Geoffrey to produce the ex¬ 
pected handful of nuts. 

“How tame he is!” Lynneth exclaimed. 

“Isn’t he? Mrs. Thorne comes here occasionally, and 
she’s made pets of three or four of these little fellows, 
but this one seems to regard me as his special property. 
You ought to hear him scold when I pretend I haven’t 
anything for him!” 

Lynneth laughed softly—the faintest ripple of mirth, 
which did not even alarm the chipmunk. And so they 
talked on, lightly, easily, unconsciously avoiding any¬ 
thing that might border on seriousness or approach, 
however obliquely, the depths of which both were 
aware, as one slowly awakening from profound sleep is 
aware of the first pale glimmer of the coming daylight. 

It was a passing allusion of Geoffrey’s to a little 
stream he had once seen in an Indian forest, supposed 
to have been one of the resting places of the Buddha, 
that made Lynneth say, a little wistfully; “You’ve trav¬ 
elled a good deal, haven’t you ?’’ 

“Quite a bit. You see, I was born with a golden spoon 
in my mouth. It was forcibly removed a few years ago, 
but while it stayed there I had a mighty good time.” 

“Was it the war that—that did the removing?” Lyn¬ 
neth asked. 

“Yes, and no. My father died when I was only a 
little chap, and my uncle, his elder brother, promised to 
make me his heir. He was an old bachelor—there were 
more than fifteen years between him and my father— 
and he had a pile of money. My mother died before 
I was out of college, and my uncle was firmly convinced 
that work was the original curse, and to have to earn 


154 


LOVE AND LIFE 


your own living the worst possible misfortune. He col¬ 
lected idols—the more hideous they were the better he 
liked them—and when I graduated he sent me on a trip 
around the world. While I was gone he married a 
widow with five small children! Then the war came, 
and I wangled my way into the English Army. That 
was the last straw! I fancy the widow’d have had her 
knife into me anyway, but she was one of the pro- 
German, self-styled pacifist bunch, and she twisted my 
poor old uncle round her little finger. He wrote me 
a letter that would make your hair stand on end—called 
me a hired murderer and a few trifles of that sort, and 
wound up by declaring he never wanted to hear my 
name again.” 

“But you were transferred when America went in?” 

“Oh yes; they were awfully decent about it. That 
didn’t make a speck of difference to dear uncle, though. 
He died, and cut me off without even the customary 
shilling. D’you know,” he added whimsically, “I’ve 
never been able to understand how such a punctilious 
old chap as he was came to omit that shilling? It spoils 
the effect of the whole thing! Cut off without a shilling 
doesn’t sound right. Now does it?” 

“You don’t seem to worry about it very much!” 

“Why should I? My uncle lived in San Francisco, 
and he didn’t even pretend to care tuppence ha’penny 
for me—I never saw him more than a couple of times.” 
He paused with a chuckle. “I don’t believe I made any 
overwhelmingly favourable impression on him, either! 
I remember once when I was a little tad about eight 
or so, he said something that made me furious, and I 
shied a book at him! Holy cats, wasn’t there a row, 
though? Then when I was in college, I got the Social¬ 
ist bug pretty badly, and being young enough to think 
I could reform the world and all the people in it over¬ 
night, I made a lot of terrifically inflammatory and 


WEST HILLSDALE 


155 


declamatory speeches. How my uncle heard about them 
I never knew—don’t know now, for that matter—and 
he didn’t say a thing until afterwards, when he threw 
me over. Fact is, I was just a convenience, the heir 
he needed until he got the widow’s mites. So I couldn’t 
be expected to rend my garments and tear my hair out 
by handfuls, now could I? As for the coin—well, it’s 
a mighty handy thing to have in the house, but I’m not 
lying awake any!” 

He certainly did not look as if he were, leaning there 
against the trunk of the tree, his fine head thrown back 
a little, showing the strong, sun-bronzed throat above 
the loose collar of the khaki shirt, his laughing eyes 
fixed on her face. There was about him an air of 
debonair self-confidence, the self-confidence of one who 
had diced with Death again and again, a self-confidence 
founded on self-knowledge, very far removed from con¬ 
ceit. He might be defeated; but so long as breath was 
in his body, it was impossible to imagine him as sub¬ 
mitting to defeat. 

“Do forgive me for gassing away like this!” he sud¬ 
denly exclaimed. “I don’t usually talk so much about 
myself—cross my heart! But you’re such a jolly good 
listener!” 

“Oh, but I like to hear you talk!” Lynneth earnestly 
assured him. “Honest Injun, I do. You’ve seen and 
done things, and I haven’t seen or done anything. I’ve 
always longed to go abroad! You know, I believe when 
I die, if I’ve been very, very good, my soul won’t go 
straight to heaven but be allowed to float around down 
here, so I can have a look at all the countries I wanted 
so dreadfully to see while I was alive—Egypt first, and 
France and India and England and Greece and Italy and 
Scotland and Japan-” 

“Why Egypt first?” he asked. 

“I suppose because of my father, and the things he 



156 


LOVE AND LIFE 


sometimes told me. He was a great scholar and archae¬ 
ologist. He’d done some excavating in Egypt, and he 
used to say he belonged there.” 

“Funny! I’ve felt like that.—Do you believe in rein¬ 
carnation ?” 

“I’m not sure. I don’t quite-” She paused, 

twisting a bit of feathery grass between her fingers. 
“It sort of explains things, doesn’t it?’’ 

His eyes were thoughtful. He was looking away 
from her now, towards the summit of the mountain. 

“When I was in Egypt,” he said slowly, “I felt as if 
I belonged—had lived there once. And the same in 
England, though that may have been just reading and 
inheritance. There’s a hill in North Wales, near Con¬ 
way. I climbed it while I was there—and I’d have 
sworn I’d climbed it before! Have you ever felt-?” 

She nodded. “Not about places—only people.” 

He turned quickly. “/ know! As if they were old 
friends—or enemies. The first time I ever saw you I 
was sure I knew you—D’you remember?” 

“Yes. And I was certain I’d met you somewhere.” 

“Queer! Isn’t it?” 

“It’s rather—frightening.” 

“Oh, I don’t know!” He settled himself more com¬ 
fortably against the trunk of the tree, looking up at 
the tenuous tracery of the leaves upon the azure back¬ 
ground of the sky. “If we’re not afraid to keep on 
being, why mind having been? And if that sensation of 
knowing people means we really have known them 
before and hated or—or cared for them a lot, isn’t it a 
kind of assurance that we may keep on caring . . . 
afterwards ?” 

She drew a deep breath. “Perhaps! And the most 
horrible thing about death is that it means—separation.” 

“I’m not sure it does—not if the caring’s big enough. 
My best pal went West five years ago—oh, I haven’t 
seen him, or had any automatic writing or ouija-board 





WEST HILLSDALE 


157 


stunts! But I haven’t forgotten him, or what he was 
— is —to me, and sometimes I’ve felt as if he must some¬ 
how be . . . near me.” 

“You believe, then, that we’ve lived before, and will 
go on living—afterwards?” 

“Afterwards, yes. About the before—well, I’m 
doubtful. Only as you say, the theory does explain 
ever so many things! Like—like love at first sight, 
for instance.” 

She had taken off her hat, and the flickering leaves 
made a changeful, living background for her small wist¬ 
ful face and candid eyes. 

“A love that could hold through all changes . . . 
through life, and death, and life again ... !” Her 
voice was low, and very dreamy. 

From the swaying branches a brown-edged leaf flut¬ 
tered down into her lap. She touched it, crumbling it 
between her fingers almost unconsciously. But the feel 
of it against her finger-tips remained with her during 
all the years of her life. 

She spoke again, lingeringly, a little sadly: “People 
forget so easily—and so quickly!” 

“Not if it’s—the big thing! The love that isn’t 
stronger than death, that can’t hold through and be¬ 
yond death, may be very sweet and pleasant and all that, 
but it isn’t—magnificent!—Will you please look at that 
little imp trying to smuggle himself into my pocket!” 

Foiled in his quest for nuts, the chipmunk ran away, 
but only a very little way. Sitting up on his haunches, 
he looked at them so reproachfully that they laughed 
together, which seemed to hurt his feelings, since he dis¬ 
appeared with a disdainful whisk of the tail and was 
seen no more that afternoon. Perhaps he thought that 
having played his part in the human comedy he was 
now free to return to his own affairs. 


CHAPTER THIRD 


At West Hillsdale, walking is the one and only pos¬ 
sible form of exercise. The stony unevenness of the 
narrow, steep road is warranted to wreck the springs 
of any automobile, and is equally unsatisfactory for 
riding and driving, even if horses and motors were 
available—which they are not. Neither golf course nor 
tennis courts exist anywhere near, and there is no body 
of water large enough to make boating practicable. So 
the only thing to do is to walk, and no one of the gossip- 
loving females in the boarding house wondered that 
every afternoon should see Lynneth going along the 
road up the mountain. 

She would not have cared, whatever they might con¬ 
jecture. For her, existence had become a thing of 
wonder and of beauty. A rainbow dream; a shimmer¬ 
ing, incandescent glory. She lived only during the 
hours she and Geoffrey were together. Away from him, 
she went over them again and again, not so much re¬ 
calling as permeated through and through with a con¬ 
sciousness of his words and looks and tones. 

Never once did they, in so many words, agree to meet. 
That they should do so was tacitly understood, as mar¬ 
vellous as sunrise, and as unnecessary to mention. They 
read together, walked together, talked together, exchang¬ 
ing or sharing ideas and opinions, perplexities and 
whimsicalities. They told each other their past histories, 
in happy certainty that every tiniest detail would be of 
absorbing interest. Little by little, Geoffrey related the 
full story of his journeyings in lands whose names were 
magic words to Lynneth; Paris and London, Arabia and 
Egypt and Hindustan. He told it well, too, in swift 

158 


WEST HILLSDALE 


159 


keen sentences. Crowding experiences had only in¬ 
creased his zest for living. Impossible to picture him 
as ever becoming bored or blase, though in his twenty- 
eight years he had seen and done more than many see 
or do in a life-time. And the girl whose existence had 
been so much less rich than his was the most eager 
of listeners. 

After a while he told of his ambitions, of the im¬ 
proved form of giant air-craft which as yet existed only 
in his brain. His imagination was busy with visions 
of a passenger-service between New York and Chicago, 
New York and London. . . . 

The girl caught the glow of his ideas, saw the link¬ 
ing-up he described, the great fleets sailing through the 
air. Ardently she responded to his enthusiasm. . . . 

And at last, though this in baldest, briefest fashion, 
he told her what he had never yet told any one—the 
tale of those adventures down upon the earth and up 
among the clouds which had won him the D. S. O. 
and the M. M., as well as the Croix de Guerre. 

“Any of the other fellows would have done as 
much, and lots of them did a great deal more! I was 
lucky, that’s all,” he protestingly commented. 

But if slow to speak of his own exploits, he was 
ready enough to talk about his friends’, and especially 
those of a certain Roderick Malvin, who; “Ought to 
have had the Victoria Cross, and never got a darn 
thing! It isn’t only that he’s plucky; most chaps are. 
But you can depend on him. No matter what hap¬ 
pened, you’d know he’d never let you down. Awfully 
shy, and not a bit of a talker, but if ever you were in 
a tight place he’d get you out of it, somehow!” 

Lynneth soon felt very well acquainted with this 
same Roderick Malvin, the older man Geoffrey never 
tired of praising; with Jim Thorne; and with Langston 
.Vernon, that “best pal” who had gone West, but of 


160 


LOVE AND LIFE 


whom Geoffrey always spoke as though he were alive, 
and very near. 

And in return Lynneth, who had been so reticent with 
Danvers Calhoun, who had found it difficult to confide 
freely even in Joan, revealed to this other, this man she 
had, reckoning in days and hours, known so short a 
time, yet felt that she had known always, most of the 
small incidents of her quiet life. Reflected in his sym¬ 
pathy, much of that life appeared to her under a new 
aspect. She grew at once further away from and more 
keenly compassionate towards the play-starved, love- 
starved child, the lonely, romantic girl who had been 
herself, yet now seemed so far apart from herself. 

Of the future, neither had as yet spoken, though both 
occasionally realized, and realized with a shock, how 
rapidly the golden weeks were flying past. The reports 
on aviation fields and the needs of the air-craft service 
upon which Geoffrey had been working were nearly 
finished. The last of the wild roses was long since 
gone; here and there the sumach showed crimson, and 
the golden-rod was breaking into bloom. Lynneth’s 
pallour had been replaced by blush-rose tints, her grey 
eyes were starry, all her movements instinct with a blithe 
unconscious grace. Geoffrey, more bronzed than ever, 
seemed if possible even more intensely, glowingly alive. 
Breathless, expectant, both awaited the coming of the 
fulfilling hour. 

And as if it wished to be kind to them, to help them 
gather full sheaves of happy memories, the weather re¬ 
mained clear. Showers fell only at night or during the 
early morning, and though there were some scorching 
days, they were exceptional. 

“Do you know we haven’t had a single thunder-storm 
since I came?” Lynneth remarked one afternoon, as a 
heavy cloud which had been lowering in the east was 
finally dispelled by the victorious spears of the setting 
sun. “And yet they say this place is famous for them!” 


WEST HILLSDALE 


161 


“I’m glad of it!” Geoffrey exclaimed vehemently. 
‘Tm glad of it! I hate thunder-storms !” 

She perfectly understood. Thunder, reverberating 
among these hills, must sound very like the rumbling 
of the great guns. 

He went on quickly; “The Thornes have told me of 
some awful ones. There’s a house near the top of the 
mountain that was struck and burned down not long 
ago.” 

“What in the world do you suppose ever induced any 
one to build ’way up there?” commented Lynneth, try¬ 
ing to coax the little chipmunk, whom they had named 
Cap’n Cuttle, to climb up her shoulder. He had made 
friends with her almost at once, but he was, she de¬ 
clared, of a variable disposition and afflicted with the 
artistic temperament. 

“It’s quite a yarn. Mr. Thorne told me the whole 
story the other night.” 

After a long walk, they were resting on their fa¬ 
vourite bench beside the pool. He wriggled his shoul¬ 
ders into a more comfortable position against the trunk 
of the over-spreading tree before he went on: 

“Once upon a time, there was a rich old farmer who 
married a pretty young wife. She was a Hillsdale girl, 
but she’d spent a lot of time in Eastdale—that’s some¬ 
thing of a town, you know—and there she’d met and 
fallen in love with a young chap about her own age. 
Well, he went off to make his fortune, according to the 
best and most popular traditions, and she promised to 
wait until he’d done it. She didn’t. She got tired of 
waiting, and married the rich old farmer. They lived 
in the valley a while, but the girl was discontented and 
the farmer tyrannical. He knew she’d married him for 
his money, and he seems to have been determined she 
shouldn’t get anything out of it. So what did he do 
but build that house, miles away from everything and 
everybody! There he kept her practically a prisoner 


162 


LOVE AND LIFE 


until she gave up and died. He lived to be over ninety, 
and might be living still if the house hadn’t been struck 
by lightning. He was burned to death. But it’s her 
ghost that they say haunts the ruins.” 

“Did the lover ever come back?” 

“Never! He settled somewhere in the Middle West, 
married, had a large family, and prospered exceedingly. 
The girl got the worst of it!” 

“No more than she deserved, if she couldn’t be loyal!” 
Lynneth exclaimed with all the confidence of inexperi¬ 
ence. Then added; “Have you ever been up there?” 

“To the house? Not all the way. The road goes 
straight to it, but they tell me the last mile or so is 
pretty well over-grown. Would you like to try it?” 

“Yes; wouldn’t you? The first clear cool day-” 

He tossed a nut to the chipmunk. It chanced to hit 
the shyly trustful Cap’n Cuttle on the nose and he 
scurried away, then stopped and looked back, as one 
grieved, but willing to forgive. 

Geoffrey threw him another, then asked abruptly, and 
without a glance at Lynneth: 

“Why not tomorrow, if it’s fine?” 

Beneath the commonplace question was that which 
set her heart to beating swiftly. It needed an effort 
to reply casually: “Very well; tomorrow. The sunset 
looks as if it were going to be clear.” 

She had turned from him, intently studying the west, 
where the August sun was going down in a final blaze 
of scarlet and gold and amethyst splendour. But he 
could see the lovely lines of her throat, the curves of 
cheek and chin. A wide, floppy straw hat concealed the 
upper part of her face, and made yet darker the soft 
shadows of her hair. Through the thin organdie veil¬ 
ing them, the whiteness of her neck and shoulders 
gleamed mistily. 

He lowered his voice. “I’ve something to tell you. 
My reports are finished. I did the last bit of work 



WEST HILLSDALE 


163 


on them today. I’ll write my chief tonight, and I may 
have to go on to Washington at any time.” 

She turned to him swiftly. “Those last changes came 
out all right, then? You said you weren’t sure if your 
calculations-” 

“Ain’t you feared you’ll ketch your death o’ cold, 
settin’ out here? Beats all, the way city folks does love 
to set out o’ doors!” 

Farmer Thorne’s voice startled the two on the wooden 
seat. Lynneth flushed; Geoffrey was pale under his tan. 

“We have to be indoors so much, you see!” the girl 
exclaimed quickly. Snatching at the old man’s pet 
grievance, she glanced at one of the three cows he was 
driving before him, and asked; “Did Daisy go far to¬ 
day?” 

The bait was swallowed instantly. Though in all 
other respects an admirable, even an exemplary animal, 
Daisy had an errant strain in her blood. Or perhaps 
it was only that she was an inveterate optimist, always 
hoping to find something better than her poor and stony 
pasturage. Her adventures had been many, and Mr. 
Thorne enjoyed few things so much as telling about 
them. Lynneth’s question confirmed his impression of 
her as a young woman who, apart from her citified pas¬ 
sion for fresh air, was uncommonly sensible. And so 
the three strolled down the road together, following the 
cows through the slowly gathering twilight. 

When Lynneth entered the dining room at Jenkins’, 
she found on her plate a letter from Joan. The sight 
of the odd, characteristic scrawl was like a friendly 
handclasp. She was glad to be in touch with Joan that 
evening! But—what an odd letter! 

“Dear Lynneth:—I’m going away on business, and won’t 
be able to write you for some time. Address me at the 
shop, as usual. I’ll get the letters when I come back. It’s 
the dull season, and Madge can manage alone all right. 

“If you get to town before I do, go straight to the apart- 



164 


LOVE AND LIFE 


ment. It’s ready, and Madge has the keys. Glad you're 
so much better, and having a good time. 

“Dear Lynn, you’re the best little pal any woman ever 
had. You’ve helped me a lot, and I care for you more 
than I’ve ever been able to say. 

“Joan.” 

Lynneth knit her brows. Of all the queer letters! It 
wasn’t—no, it wasn’t a bit like Joan! The sudden little 
outbreak at the end—did it mean that something had 
happened ? 

But what could have happened? Their profits had 
never been large, but they’d increased steadily, and they 
had been congratulating themselves that the business 
seemed firmly on its feet. Were Joan’s private affairs 
bothering her ? She read the letter once more; and 
again. 

It wasn’t a bit like Joan! 

The hurry and constraint of the first part were queer; 
and the end was queerer still, dear and sweet as it was. 
Joan had helped her a lot; she’d always known that, 

and said it, but the idea of her having helped Joan-! 

She hadn’t, of course; not really. But it was dear of 
Joan to think so, and if she hadn’t thought so she 
wouldn’t have written it. 

Which didn’t make the letter less puzzling, nor alter 
the fact that it wasn’t in the least like Joan! 

Something must have happened. But—what? 



CHAPTER FOURTH 

“Sure it isn't going to be too hot a tramp for you?" 
asked Geoffrey anxiously. 

Lynneth smiled, sweet lips curving exquisitely, long 
lashes hiding the light in her eyes. She knew he had 
set his heart on this little expedition. And she would 
have gone, had the sun blazed ten times more fiercely 
than it did. 

“Oh, I don’t think it's so terribly warm!" she replied, 
cheerfully mendacious. “We can take a rest when we 
get there, and it will be beautifully cool coming home." 

“All right, then. Here—give me that thing of yours." 
Which indefinite term referred to the little rose-coloured 
woolen wrap, a relic of Washington Square, Lynneth 
carried on her arm. No matter how hot the day might 
be, up here among the hills it was foolish to go far 
without something of the sort. 

She surrendered it to him, demanding with playful 
curiosity: “What’s in your knapsack? Did Mrs. 

Thorne-" 

“Little girls shouldn’t ask questions," he laughed. 
“What’s a picnic without a surprise?" 

She made an absurd little face at him, betraying the 
dimple that lived near a corner of her mouth. 

August was all but ended, and the sun blazed down 
as if trying to make full use of all his power before 
autumn interposed her cool shield between his rays and 
the weary earth. For many days no drop of rain had 
fallen; the ground was hard and dry, the trees and 
bushes parched and suffering. Lynneth paused to ex¬ 
claim regretfully over the grey thirsty moss, the wee 
flowers and tiny green growths massed in a sheltered 
nook on the top of a towering stone which she called 

165 



166 


LOVE AND LIFE 


\ 


her Japanese garden, and had amused herself by tending 
as best she could, keeping it free from slugs, picking 
away the dead leaves and small dry twigs which fell 
upon it from the over-shadowing trees. The voices of 
the brooks were stilled; only a thread of water trickled 
over the stones, and the trout were nowhere to be seen. 

They walked on steadily, up and up, past the land¬ 
marks which during these weeks had become their 
friends, to the unfamiliar regions above. Once they 
stopped to cool off and take breath, perching precari¬ 
ously on the top rail of a fence at the edge of a grove 
where silver birches stood, white and slender as so 
many nymphs of the woodland. Now and then they 
talked, sometimes gayly, sometimes seriously, but for 
the most part they went on in that happy silence which 
is the ultimate test of companionship. 

Presently the road narrowed, becoming over-grown 
with weeds and brambles, rougher than ever, a mere 
trace of wagon-ruts winding between tall rocks. Geof¬ 
frey took the lead; she followed in the path he cleared 
for her. And so at last they reached the ruined house. 

Expecting to see it though they were, it came upon 
them as suddenly as did the long-sought Dark Tower 
upon Childe Roland. Burned and blackened and grim, 
it crouched there like some gaunt old hag, bowed and 
scarred with years of evil living. A hideous thing it 
was, a thmg to shrink from, to abhor. And it seemed 
to have a strange and horrible atmosphere of its own 
which brooded about it heavily, weighed down with woe. 
But it was no clean sorrow which so darkly hung around 
that ruined house. 

Lynneth shivered. Then just because she wanted to 
turn and run, she advanced resolutely. But she could 
not prevent her voice from sinking a little as she said: 
“It is a desolate sort of place, isn’t it?” 

Geoffrey’s reply was indirect. “I don’t wonder people 
say it’s haunted! Think how eerie it must be after 


WEST HILLSDALE 


167 


nightfall, when the bats begin to fly!” He glanced spec¬ 
ulatively up to where the blackened rafters protruded 
like bones from which the flesh had as yet but partly 
rotted, and added with a sudden mischievous boyish¬ 
ness: “Wish we could get a look inside!” 

Forthwith he began to prowl around the house, as 
intent on discovering some means of ingress as any 
ten-year-old urchin. The flames had burned straight 
through the roof, a greater part of which had long since 
fallen in. Not a fragment of glass remained in any of 
the blankly staring windows; most of the building was 
a charred wreck, sullenly disintegrating. But freakishly 
enough, the wilful blaze had spared a single corner 
room on the ground floor, leaving it, not undamaged, 
but with its walls and ceiling at least free from gaping 
holes, while the heavy wooden shutters shielding its two 
windows were still tightly fastened. With a good deal 
of difficulty and the accumulation of much iron-rust, 
Geoffrey contrived to unlatch one of these and throw 
it back. 

“Look! This must have been the living room!” he 
announced eagerly. 

Lynneth went to stand beside him. The room had 
been stripped of its furnishings, all but one broken- 
down chair, which seemed grimly, hopelessly awaiting 
the return of those who would never come again. And 
over the stained mantel-shelf a mirror hung, cracked 
and blurred, reflecting the mournful emptiness. 

“Can’t you just imagine those two sitting there facing 
each other night after night, and night after night?” 
Geoffrey exclaimed in a low voice, as though conscious¬ 
ness of some hovering, listening presence forbade him 
to speak aloud. “She hating him, and dying by inches 

of her hatred, and he- Do you suppose he knew, 

and . . . waited? God! What a way to live! I’d 
rather crash, and die quickly!” 

“Come away!” Lynneth’s cry was an entreaty. “Come 



168 


LOVE AND LIFE 


away! Don’t try to go in. I can’t stand this place— 
I loathe it!” 

“So do I!” He turned abruptly, back towards the 
sunlit slopes stretching away from the ruin, and draw¬ 
ing a long breath gave himself a little shake, like a dog 
emerging from deep water. “Let’s climb those rocks 
over there.” 

From the level space of moss and turf, tucked snugly 
in among the boulders and shadowed by the wide- 
spreading branches of a splendid horse-chestnut the 
house, though scarcely a quarter of a mile distant, was 
quite invisible. It was cool here in the shade, with the 
tree-tops rustling gently overhead, and the sun-drenched 
earth, warm and deeply breathing, rolling away in great 
undulations down, far down to where the cities lay, fan¬ 
tastic as monsters out of some folk-lore tale. It was 
all a blending of multitudinous hues of grey and green, 
shading at times almost to blackness. Only here and 
there a clump of golden-rod shone yellow, or a maple, 
nestling in some hollow, blazed out in triumphant scarlet. 

Geoffrey first made Lynneth comfortable, with her back 
against a low rock and her wrap for a pillow, then flung 
himself at full length upon the thick moss, a cigarette 
between his lips and his cap drawn over his eyes. There 
was no sign, anywhere that they could see, of any 
human existence save their own. From some thicket 
below, far down the slope, a lark rose soaring into the 
sky. 

“It’s a good old world!” Geoffrey murmured presently. 
“It’s a jolly good old world!” 

Lynneth felt a sudden lump rise in her throat. He 
was so full of life, so swift and keen and eager to enjoy, 
who for nearly five years had challenged Death, had 
seen Death-! 

Somehow he divined her thought, and he turned his 
head and smiled at her with clear bright eyes, eyes 
memory-shadowed, but without one trace of fear. 



WEST HILLSDALE 


169 


“Yes, I can feel like that in spite of—of all the hor¬ 
rors !” He was answering her unspoken thought, as he 
had done more than once. “I’m not making light of them 
—heaven forbid!” His eyes darkened; his fingers pulled 
absently at a blade of grass. “There’ve been times when 
they seemed to blot out everything else. The day they 
told me Verney—my best pal—had gone West, I-” 

He broke off; his lips twitched, and he bit them hard. 
She knew how he had loved that “best pal” of his, and 
she tried to find something to say which might a little 
deflect, without jarring on his thoughts. 

“Isn’t it queer how that phrase came back? It’s three 
or four thousand years since the Egyptians spoke of 

their dead as ‘The Westerners/ and now we-” She 

paused. 

“They reasoned—and hoped. We reason—and hope. 
The essentials are still the same. God—the human soul 
—the life beyond death. They conceived of them in 
their fashion, and we conceive of them in ours. But 
it’s only a change of form. In spite of all the thousands 
of years that have passed and the millions who’ve died, 
we don’t know one bit more than they did!” 

“But you said you believed-” 

“I do believe—I believe that God exists, and soul ex¬ 
ists, and will go on existing. Anything else seems to me 
unthinkable. The fact that we can’t form any just idea 
of God, and usually get only an Impersonal Force or a 
glorified man when we try, isn’t any argument. A year- 
old child couldn’t form any adequate idea of a Darwin 
or a Plato ! And it’s the same with our ideas of the life 
to come. We can’t imagine what it’s like any more than 
a man born blind can imagine the ocean or the sunrise. 
But the ocean and the sunrise are there just the same. 
Life’s an adventure—and Death’s a greater one! We 
leap into the dark.” 

“For sudden the worst turns the best to the brave,” 
Lynneth quoted softly. 





170 


LOVE AND LIFE 


He flashed a grateful glance at her. “Yes! It all 
comes back to that—do your part as well as you can, 
live your life bravely, ‘And with God be the rest!’ ” 

The hush that fell, not between but over them both, 
came like a benediction. 

“Perhaps I’ve no right to talk,” he went on presently. 
‘Tve had a lot out of life, and—well, I’m blood-brother 
to the man in Kipling’s poem—you remember ?—‘ ’E 
liked it all/ I’ve liked it all! If I should crash next time 
I go up—I certainly don’t intend to!—I wouldn’t feel 
as if I’d been cheated. I’ve had some jolly good times, 
and some splendid pals, and then—then you came and 
made these last weeks perfect. ...” 

His voice sank in a long breath. And Lynneth could 
not speak, dared not even try to speak, so vivid to her 
was the vision he had suggested, then quickly endeav¬ 
oured to dispel. 

So there was silence between them, a silence which 
lasted until a venturesome robin lit on a nearby twig, 
calling to his plump mate, and when she fluttered down 
to him berating her soundly. Then a couple of chip¬ 
munks stole out, and sat up to survey them. 

“Can’t we find something for them to eat?” Lynneth 
asked, retreating into the commonplace. 

“Good idea! They’re probably hungry—I know I 
am!” 

“Let me unpack the knapsack. Please! I want to.” 

“All right. Wait a minute—that’s an obstinate beast 
of a buckle! There! Now you can investigate.” 

“Sandwiches. And cookies. And apple-pie. And-” 

“Chocolate cake!” he interrupted gleefully. “Two 
scrumptious big hunks of it! And there’s iced coffee in 
the thermos. How’s that for a spread ?” 

“We’ll never be able to eat it all!” 

“Oh, won’t we! Just you wait and see. And we’ll 
give those poor relations of Cap’n Cuttle’s the finest 
feast they ever had in all their greedy little lives l” 



WEST HILLSDALE 


171 


So they ate and drank and threw morsels to the chip¬ 
munks and made absurd jokes and laughed at them as 
if they had been marvels of humour, and enjoyed them¬ 
selves as those can who are comrades as well as lovers. 
Yet all the while each was conscious of playing a part, 
not to deceive, but to make it easier for the other to sus¬ 
tain the corresponding role. And they never turned 
their eyes to where, unseen, the ruined house crouched 
beneath its invisible burden. 

Consequently they were unaware of the great black 
clouds which, as the afternoon waned, began to gather 
fast. Each was absorbed in the other, while each had 
an unacknowledged sense of expectancy, of awaiting the 
swift and sure approach of something—tremendous. 

They did not notice that the songs of the birds had 
changed to a shrill twittering, that the lengthening 
shadows were not enough to account for the rapid fail¬ 
ing of the light. Even the first low growl of thunder 
was unheeded. Not until the second came did they 
start, and look around, and tingle with mingled excite¬ 
ment and dismay to see the huge, thunder-headed clouds 
sweeping forward in a magnificent rush across the sky. 
Already the distant trees had begun to sway; the rustle 
of leaves was changing to the clash of branches. Both 
sprang to their feet, Geoffrey catching up his knapsack 
and Lynneth’s wrap. 

“We must run for it!” he exclaimed. “The storm’s 
going to break in no time!” 

As if to emphasize his words, a streak of lightning 
ripped through the clouds. The sun had vanished ut¬ 
terly, the trees wailed in the gusts that twisted Lynneth’s 
fluttering skirt close about her limbs and snatched unsuc¬ 
cessfully at her broad-brimmed hat. 

An instant she stood poised, both hands lifted to her 
head, a slim, lithe figure outlined against the wind-swept 
background of the tossing trees. Then another blast al¬ 
most whirled her off her feet. 


172 


LOVE AND LIFE 


“We can’t possibly get down the mountain in this!” 
she cried. But there was no dismay in her voice. Some¬ 
thing wild, exultant, had risen singing in her blood, 
chanting its response to the Pagan challenge of the 
wind. 

“Of course we can’t!” He had seized her arm and 
was hurrying her forward, almost at a run. “We’ll have 
to break into the old house. That one room—it’ll shelter 
us for a while. There’s nowhere else we can go. We 
must hurry-” 

Alone, she would have stayed out in any storm rather 
than enter that ghostly room. But for her, fear could 
not exist where Geoffrey Tressel was. Her wind- 
whipped skirts seemed doing their best to hinder her, 
yet in a very few minutes they had reached the house. 
The front door was locked, but its hinges hung loose, 
and Geoffrey put his shoulder to it and forced it open. 
There in the roofless hall, piled high with debris, they 
could look straight up into the livid sky. He remem¬ 
bered the direction of that undamaged room; a moment, 
and they stood within it. 

The darkness was now so dense that they could see 
each other’s faces only as a dim blur, yet the cracked 
mirror over the mantelshelf reflected a faint and ghastly 
light. Lynneth’s breath was coming rapidly; her sense 
of some great event impending was quickened, inten¬ 
sified. 

Geoffrey struck a match, and held it high above his 
head. “The old place looks water-tight,” he exclaimed 
cheerfully; an undercurrent of excitement pulsated 
through his tone. “I don’t see any signs of the roof 
having leaked, but-Ah-h! There it comes !” 

An instant of silence, a second’s pause. And then, 
with first a hissing and then a roaring smother of water, 
the storm came swooping down. . . . 

Many of the slats in the old wooden shutters were 
splintered or broken, and through these open spaces the 




WEST HILLSDALE 


173 


lightning seemed to leap into the room, dark now that 
Geoffrey’s match had gone out. Again and again the 
great jagged sword thrust downward through the slant¬ 
ing sheets of rain, while overhead the thunder rolled, 
volley upon volley, peal after peal, as though the Titans 
had scaled high Olympus and were once more waging 
desperate warfare against the gods. 

Drawn by a force they did not try to resist, the refu¬ 
gees went to a window through whose broken shutter 
they could see far out over the trees and fields sloping 
down the mountain. All the world seemed enveloped 
in a swirling cloak of rain. . . . 

Some fifty feet away, the centre of a group of smaller 
trees that seemed to cower about it for protection, a 
great oak towered. Superb leader of a sorely stricken 
host, its branches were like arms flung out in wild en¬ 
treaty. And the furious rain-drenched blasts lashed 
them viciously, with a kind of horrible, concentrated 
rage. 

Lynneth’s fascinated eyes clung to that great oak, that 
leader praying to the storm gods for their mercy upon 
those lesser trees, his followers and suppliants, not upon 
himself. . . . 

But of mercy they had none. The thunder now 
sounded directly over the house. So fast its crashes 
came, that between them there was scarcely breathing 
space. The clashing branches, the roar of the rain and 
Valkyrie scream of the wind, joined with the thunder 
in one mighty symphony of destruction, magnificent, 
terrible, awe-inspiring. Human speech seemed impos¬ 
sible, almost an impertinence. Yet Nature’s wild trium¬ 
phant dominance made human companionship an aching 
need. 

And there in the black desolation of that hate-haunted 
room, lit by the glare of lightning as by flashes from hell, 
the hands of those two met and clasped. . . . 

Nearer to each other they drew, and nearer—when 


174 


LOVE AND LIFE 


suddenly there came a great burst of flame, rending, 
gashing the heavens asunder, and with it such a crash 
as if some comet, fleeing through space, had hurled it¬ 
self upon the angry earth. 

Then for the first time Lynneth cried out. The bolt 
had struck the great oak, splitting it in two. 

“Lynneth!” It was Geoffrey’s voice, but Geoffrey’s 
voice as she had never heard it before. And the noise 
of the wind and rain and thunder died into nothingness. 

“Lynneth!” he said. And once again; “Lynneth-?” 

She could not answer. But as his arms closed about 
her, she lifted her face to his, and gave him her lips. . . . 

And how long it was before the storm passed and they 
were able to go down the steep, moonlit road, neither 
ever knew. 



CHAPTER FIFTH 


“Lynnette, belovedest, Pm going to be practical!” 

“Oh, Geoff dear, what for?” 

“As a soon-to-be married man, I’m feeling my respon¬ 
sibilities. Now stop flirting with Cap’n Cuttle, and at¬ 
tend to me!” 

“He won’t flirt any more! That’s my last nut, and 
the mercenary little wretch knows it. See him scamper!” 

“He’s thinking of his home. Go to the chipmunk, 
oh thou frivolous one, and acquire wisdom! It’s his 
example that’s inspiring me. Comfortable, sweetheart?” 

“Perfectly!” 

Lynneth’s answer came on a contented sigh. Seated 
in their favourite place beside the pool, watching the 
sunlight play upon the water and glint back from the 
quaint old ring, a glorious ruby once the property of an 
Eastern princess, which Geoffrey had given her only 
the day before, with her head against his shoulder and 
his arm about her, she was both deeply content and 
thrilling with happiness. 

This last week! Was it upon the homely old earth, 
or in some Land of Faerie that she had been living? 
And what a beautiful world it was! Beautiful as she 
had never dreamed it could be before he came, who had 
transmuted living into wonder and ecstasy. Her old 
visions of the enchanted garden seemed poor and pallid 
to her now! She stroked his hand lightly, with sensitive 
finger-tips whose touch was eloquent, and he took and 
held them to his lips. Over their heads the leaves rus¬ 
tled musically, as if the dryad of the tree were mur¬ 
muring good wishes to them. 

175 


176 


LOVE AND LIFE 


“This isn’t being very practical!” observed Lynneth, a 
note of tenderest laughter lilting through her voice. 

“No; it’s ever so much better!” He paused a moment, 
then added in a deeper tone; “Isn’t it wonderful, when 
this is so marvelous, to know that the best is all before 
us? Our life—together!” 

She did not answer—not in words. But of those there 
was no need. 

It was later, and quite a good deal later, that he said: 
“Lynnette mine, there are things we’ve simply got to 
think about. We can’t stay here always.” 

“I wish we could!” 

“So do I! But you know I may be sent for at any 
time.” 

“About that Government report?” 

“Yes, partly. And we’ve got to decide what we’re 
going to do, and how and where we’re going to live.” 

“As long as we’re together, nothing else matters. My 
only fear-” She stopped abruptly, biting her lip. 

He understood. “You imaginative child! During the 
war, of course the flying men had to take chances, like 
everybody else. But now—why, unless you try a lot of 
fool stunts, a plane’s as safe as an automobile any day, 
and lots better fun! I’ll take you up some time. You 
wouldn’t be afraid?” 

“With you? Of course not!” 

“Wait until I’ve worked out my idea for the new 
stabilizer! Then you’ll see! And that reminds me; I 
told you once I’d only a very few thousands outside my 
pay? To be strictly accurate, I’ve just about sixteen.” 

“Well! we don’t want to indulge in any very riotous 
living, do we?” 

“That depends! And I’ve had offers from a big con¬ 
cern-” 

She sat up straight and suddenly, interrupting him. 
Turning so that she could put both hands on his shoul¬ 
ders, she met his eyes squarely, and spoke, very quietly, 




WEST HILLSDALE 


177 


very earnestly; “Geoff, whatever happens, don’t let me 
be a hindrance! If you can do your best work in the 
army, why, then, stay in the army, and never mind about 
the money. / don’t! But it would make me perfectly 
miserable to think I was keeping you back- 

“Lynnette, you darling!” 

He caught her to him, kissing her eyelids, her hair, her 
sweet and generous mouth. . . . 

It was some time before they returned to such prosaic 
matters as dollars and cents. Then he explained: 

“I don’t believe I could stay in the army if I wanted 
to, sweet. They only kept me on because I had some 
special information they needed, and I’ll soon be turned 
out into the cold, cold world with all the rest of the tem¬ 
porary officers. I’m not sorry. It’s my belief that the 
development of aviation along commercial and passenger 
lines is going to be the biggest thing of the century. 
And I want the United States to lead, not sit back and 
let other countries build craft that’ll chase ours out of 
the air! The big concern I spoke of is made up of half 
a dozen astoundingly rich men who see this thing as I 
do. They’ll take me on, give me a free hand, and coin 
galore. You see-” 

He plunged into a semi-technical discourse, of which 
Lynneth understood a good deal more than she would 
have done a few weeks before, but not enough to weaken 
her secret resolve to get books and do some studying as 
soon as possible. The general outline, however, was 
clear enough, and her imagination had long since been 
fascinated by the idea of great white fleets of air-craft 
speeding from city to city, which was Geoffrey’s vision, 
and his hope. 

Then they reverted to their personal affairs. Their 
headquarters would be in New York. 

“We’ll try to find an apartment in the very top of one 
of the big houses, so we can look out over everything,” 
she largely suggested, and he agreed. They would have 




178 


LOVE AND LIFE 


a huge living room, they decided, with an open fire 
and plenty of windows where the sun would pour in all 
day long. They were both ineradicably optimistic. 

Suddenly; “Oh, I forgot!” Geoffrey exclaimed. “I 
meant to tell you. I had a letter from Rod last night— 
Roderick Malvin, you know. He was gassed pretty 
badly, and they’ve given him a long leave. His younger 
brother’s been in New York with a branch of a London 
firm ever since the war, and he’s coming over to see him. 
I’m sure you’ll like old Rod! He’s such a bully good 
sort—one of the best.” 

Laughter danced in Lynneth’s eyes. “So I’ve inferred 
from an occasional remark you’ve let drop,” she replied 
demurely. 

He laughed with her. “Well, but Rod’s a real hero!” 
he protested. “I want him for our first guest—him and 
Joan. I’m dreadfully curious about your Joan!” 

“That’ll be our house-warming,” she nodded. 

“Yes. But we’re not going to stay home all the time! 
We’ll travel too. You shall see Egypt and India. We’ll 
motor through France and England, and sail on the 
Mediterranean, and do all the things you’ve dreamed 
about.” 

“It’s all like a dream! It’s much too wonderful to be 
real!” 

“Nothing’s too wonderful to be real since I’ve found 
you!” 

“Suppose—somehow—we’d missed each other? But 
I don’t believe we could—When did you know?” 

“That first night. I wouldn’t admit it, though.” 

“Nor I. It seemed absurd, when I’d only seen you 
once! But I—I used to hunt up the army orders in the 
newspapers,” she confessed quite shamelessly. 

“Well, / took to reading the society columns!” he 
admitted. “I developed a perfectly abnormal interest 
in them. And I kept planning to come back to New 
York, and the Powers-That-Be kept sending me off to 
other places. I did try to find you when I got to town 


WEST HILLSDALE 


179 


this June, and traced you as far as the bookshop, but 
there they told me you were away and wouldn’t be back 
before autumn. If I hadn’t written to Ashby Lawrence, 

and if he hadn’t advised you to come here-!” His 

pause was eloquent. 

“I never liked Ashby Lawrence so much before!” she 
averred, smiling up at him with radiant eyes. 

Not for one moment did she ever shrink from acknowl¬ 
edging the depth and power and passion of the love 
which was her glory as it was his. To both it was at 
once as splendid, as marvelous, and as simple as sun¬ 
light. Life without it was unthinkable; had they ever 
really lived at all before its dawning? How could they 
have lived divided, who in heart and mind and soul were 
one? 

“We’ve got the big thing,” he said slowly, feeling for 
words to express what was all but inexpressible. “It 
isn’t—well, it isn’t just the obvious happiness that comes 
to so many, and lasts only a little while, and can be found 
again with some one else.” 

“We belong,” she replied with an intensity of feeling 
too deep and strong for anything but quietude. “It isn’t, 
it can’t be temporary. I think I always knew you were 
somewhere, and that some day . . . this . . . would 
happen.” 

“And now it has happened, and nothing can ever blot 
it out. Nothing. No matter how old we grow, or what 
life does to us, it will still be the same. We can’t”— 
and the ring in his voice was like a challenge flung at 
Fate—“we can’t be parted, you and I!” 

Confidently as he had spoken, she replied; “No. We 
can’t be parted, you and I.” 

Then Geoffrey looked up to the rising ground, topped 
by a thicket of trees beyond which was the Thornes’ 
house. And his clasp of her hand tightened suddenly. 

“Belovedest,” he exclaimed quickly, “I said I might 
be sent for any moment.” 




180 


LOVE AND LIFE 


She caught her breath. “I know.” 

“I may get a telegram today. If it comes-” 

The pulse in her throat was beating hard and fast. 
Her glance followed his across the slope, all white and 
yellow with Queen Anne’s-lace and golden-rod, down 
which tow-headed little Dicky, youngest of the Thorne 
boys, was racing at top speed. 

“I think,” she said steadily, “I think it’s coming now.” 

Dicky had come, delivered the scrawled message tele¬ 
phoned over from the office ten miles away, been thanked 
and praised, and then rushed off on some desperately 
urgent business dear to his ten-year-old heart, before she 
spoke again. 

“Well?” she asked quietly. 

He paused an instant. Then: 

“Lynnette, will you marry me tomorrow ?” he asked. 

“But, Geoffrey-!” 

“I’m called to New York. My chief’s coming on from 
Washington, and I’m to report to him at Governors 
Island on Thursday. This is Tuesday. I can telephone 
over to that nice old clergyman at Eastdale, and ask 
him to be ready with a couple of witnesses. We’ll start 
early tomorrow morning, be married in Eastdale, and 
take the ten-six for New York. That’ll get us into the 
city late in the afternoon.” He was trying to speak 
calmly, but his voice vibrated like an over-charged wire, 
and the bit of coarse paper shook in his hand. “I’ve got 
to be with the chief at eleven, Thursday morning, and 
after I’ve seen him Ell know what else we can do. Only 
first . . . Lynnette . . . dearest ... ?” 

He did not touch even her finger-tips. But his eyes 
pleaded and promised. 

She understood, and she flushed deeply. All her nerves 
were taut and quivering. 

For a moment she could not speak. But it was neither 
fear nor reluctance which held her silent. . . . 




WEST HILLSDALE 181 

She looked up at him. She had no need of words 
to make clear her answer. 

And on the following morning they stood side by side 
in the airless little parlour of the country parsonage, with 
wax flowers under a glass case upon the centre table, 
and large conch shells decorating the mantelpiece, and 
while crayon portraits glared at them, were married by 
the musty old clergyman, whose prim wife and freckled 
fat daughter were the only witnesses of the ceremony. 

Kneeling by the window the night before, her trunk 
packed and all her material preparations made, Lynneth 
had longed for Joan. No other woman had ever come 
so near to her, and though she had no doubts nor any 
shadow of fear, she wanted a woman to turn to, one 
who loved her and whom she loved. But even Joan was 
forgotten now. 

The long railway journey seemed unreal, phantasma- 
gorial. They talked a little now and then, spoke of the 
dust and of the people at the way-side stations; common¬ 
places that were mechanical, that meant less than noth¬ 
ing, save as they served to veil the fiery splendour. . . . 

And so they came at last to the dizzy roar of the 
Unquiet City, and the hotel on Riverside Drive, to which 
Geoffrey had telegraphed for rooms, on an upper floor 
and overlooking the river. 

“We’ll be sure not to meet any one we know there,” 
he had explained. 

Dusk was falling when they were shown to their eyrie, 
whose height the city noises were scarcely able to reach. 
From the windows one could look far along the Hudson. 
Lights gleamed upon its banks, twinkled over the dark 
water from the small craft at anchor, but not at rest. 
There was no moon, but the sky was glorious with stars, 
as if the eyes of all the kindly lesser gods men have fash¬ 
ioned for their comradeship and solace were turned 
towards earth that night. 











BOOK IV 


RIVERSIDE DRIVE 
















BOOK IV 

RIVERSIDE DRIVE 


CHAPTER FIRST 

When Geoffrey returned from Governors Island, 
Lynneth was waiting for him in the sitting room over¬ 
looking the Hudson. 

“What do they want?” she asked eagerly. And when 
he told her; “Can’t I go with you?” was her immediate 
question. 

“I’m afraid it isn’t possible. You see, dear heart, the 
beastly thing’s official. There’ll be senators along, mem¬ 
bers of the Committee on Aviation, as well as my chief 
and the Assistant Secretary of War, and we’ll have pri¬ 
vate cars and special trains and all the rest of it. I’ll 
have to be talking planes and landing stations and so on 
night and day, and trying to explain technicalities in 
words of one syllable!” He shrugged the broad shoul¬ 
ders so well set off by his uniform. “It’s a confounded 
nuisance, having this infernal jaunt coming up just now, 
but somehow we’ve got to hammer it into their heads 
that air-craft are necessities and not playthings.” 

“How long will you—will you be away, Geoff?” Her 
fingers were straying over the multi-coloured ribbons 
on his breast. She was going to keep her promise to 
herself never to hinder him in any way. She would 
utter no word of protest or lament over this separation 
which was coming so soon—so soon! 

“Not more than three weeks—less, if I’m lucky. And 

185 



186 


LOVE AND LIFE 


sweetheart, it will be the last time. The chief didn’t 
promise in so many words, but he intimated plainly 
enough that after I’d done this job I’d be released—hon¬ 
ourably discharged from the service. Then Lynnette, 
my Lynnette-” 

She flushed and glowed under his kisses. Presently 
she asked; “When—when must you start ?” 

“Monday morning. We’ve three clear days before 
us. And just as soon as I get back we’ll go house-hunt¬ 
ing. It’s so early in the season we’ll have plenty of time 
to find a place,” he added optimistically. “Now what 
would you like to do while I’m off on this infernal trip ? 
Go somewhere in the country, or stay on here ?” 

“Wouldn’t staying on here be terribly expensive ?” she 
asked with a hesitation he found altogether charming. 

“It’s always expensive to be even decently comfortable 
anywhere around New York! But there isn’t the least 
need of your bothering. I’ve plenty to go on with for 
a while, and my salary as advising expert with the Air¬ 
plane Interstate Commerce Company will begin in two 
or three months. It isn’t as though we were going to be 
obliged to live on army pay all the days of our lives! 
We’ll be wallowing in wealth and groaning over the in¬ 
come tax before you know what’s happened!” 

“Very well, then, I’d rather stay here. I’ll have so 
much to think over and plan for, you’ll be back almost 
before I know you’ve gone!” 

He loved her for the effort she was making. This 
parting, short though it was, would be a wrench for both 
of them! But he remembered the philosophy he had 
learned in the war. 

“Let’s forget all about Monday morning. No know¬ 
ing what may have happened by then! Today’s ours, 
and we’ll enjoy it. Tell you what; I’ll get a car and we’ll 
run out to Ardsley and have dinner at the Country Club, 
in a little corner all by ourselves. How would that suit 
my lady?” 



RIVERSIDE DRIVE 


187 


“I’d love it! I’ll be ready in fifteen minutes.” And 
she was as good as her word. 

Turning their backs on Monday morning, they gave 
themselves to the happiness so soon to be interrupted. 
In the roadster Geoffrey hired they made all-day trips 
into the country, coming back late in the evening to 
their eyrie overlooking the Hudson. Both loved the sea, 
as they had loved the hills. But it mattered little to 
either where these golden moments were passed, save 
that they instinctively desired outward beauty as a set¬ 
ting for their joy. They were together, learning all 
those immensely important trifles about each other which 
only daily living side by side can teach, while the love 
which they had believed complete and perfect grew in 
depth and strength and glory under the stimulus of a 
union in which mind and heart, passion and reverence, 
flesh and spirit mingled in a harmony at once human 
and divine. 

So when the last hours came: 

“Do you remember,” Geoffrey asked, “the story of 
that Moorish king who after reigning fifty years counted 
up the days of perfect happiness he’d had in his life, and 
found only fourteen? When we’ve lived half as long, 
how many do you suppose we’ll be able to reckon?” 

“I wonder,” she said softly, “I wonder if any of those 
days of his were as happy as our—honeymoon ?” 

“I doubt it! And when I think that after all, this is 
only the beginning—why, we haven’t even seen our home 
yet!” They were in their sitting room at the hotel, and 
he drew her down beside him on the low couch by the 
window as he went on: “Doesn’t it seem extraordinary 
that somewhere in the city the place that’s going to be 
our home exists already? I’m glad we’re both so young! 
I don’t want to miss any of it—any of the fun or the sor¬ 
row. Because of course there will be sorrow. I know 
it, but somehow I don’t believe it one bit. I can’t im¬ 
agine holding you in my arms and not feeling-” 



188 


LOVE AND LIFE 


Words failed him. . . . She thrilled, responsive to his 
ardour. And all that he had said remained in her mem¬ 
ory, to be repeated again and again lifter he was gone. 

That was what tempted her most; to shut herself up 
during the weeks of his absence, there where they had 
been so happy, and brood over all that had taken place 
since the moment when, looking up, she saw him stand¬ 
ing before her on the road. His daily letters increased 
the temptation; she read them over and over until she 
knew them by heart, following his route as best she could 
on a big map she had bought, checking off the days on a 
calendar, glad of every one that passed, bringing his 
return by just so much the nearer. She had laid out a 
course of reading for herself, and she delved as best she 
could into the books and pamphlets that might teach her 
to understand more about his work. She did not want 
to do anything else, did not want even to think of any¬ 
thing but Geoffrey. 

Her sound common sense, however, showed her the 
danger of all this. There were, and always would be, 
hours in which she must meet and recognize the claims 
of the world outside that magic circle wherein they stood 
alone. Among these claims Joan’s was strongest, and 
the first thing Lynneth did after Geoffrey’s departure 
was to make her way to the little shop on East Fifty-th 
Street. She had already written to Joan, not wishing 
her to learn of her marriage through the newspaper no¬ 
tices. But no reply had come. 

Joan was not in the bookshop. It was Madge who 
welcomed her, and welcomed her joyously. 

“Lynneth, you little wretch! So you’ve been and gone 

and done it! Come here and let me look at you- 

Good gracious! Is it matrimony or West Hillsdale that’s 
turned the trick? You’re as fresh and pink and sweet 
as a rose!” 

Her exclamation was entirely sincere. Since she had 
seen her last, the pale, wistful-looking girl had bloomed 



RIVERSIDE DRIVE 


189 


into a lovely woman. West Hillsdale had done some¬ 
thing; but Madge knew that love and Geoffrey Tressel 
had done a great deal more. 

“Now sit down and tell me all about it,” she de¬ 
manded. 

The pretty colour deepened in Lynneth’s cheeks; the 
dancing lights were in her eyes as she smiled, but the 
smile itself had changed, become the outward reflection 
of an inner radiance. 

“There isn’t much—to tell,” she replied happily, a just 
perceptible pause breaking the sentence. “Major Tres¬ 
sel and I had met in New York a couple of years ago, 
at a dance. He was up at West Hillsdale, and so we— 
we ran across each other again.” 

Madge wanted details of the wedding, and obtained 
a few. Then she must know where Lynneth was, and 
what she expected to do, and Lynneth told how Geoffrey 
had been obliged to go away, and that when he returned 
they expected to settle in New York. It was then her 
turn to ask questions. 

“Where’s Joan?” was the first. 

Madge puckered her forehead. “Give it up! She said 
she was going away on business, but where the business 
was, and what the business was, I know no more than 
the man in the moon. Generally speaking, I’d suspect 
a man in the case. But since it’s Joan-!” 

She left it there, further comment being obviously 
unnecessary. 

“How’s the shop doing?” 

“Oh, decently. Summer’s always dull, of course, but 
now September’s come things ought to pick up a bit. 
We’ve missed you, Lynn! I suppose you won’t be com¬ 
ing back?” 

Lynneth shook her head, smilingly. “My days ‘At the 
Sign of the Broken Spindle’ are over. I’ve retired into 
domesticity.” 

Madge sighed. “I wish I could! But the elusive mil- 



190 


LOVE AND LIFE 


lionaire remains elusive. I want a meal-ticket for the 
Ritz, not for Childs’ !” 

“Do you honestly mean you’d marry any man, if only 
he was rich enough ?” asked Lynneth curiously. 

“Would I! Like a shot. I’d rather he’d be ninety 
and sufficiently considerate not to linger long upon this 
earth, but I’d take even a very young one if he’d give 

me a limousine like- Oh bother! It’s stopping 

here!” 

Lynneth glanced out of the diamond-paned bay win¬ 
dow. “Good gracious, that’s Aunt Honoria’s car!” she 
exclaimed. 

Mrs. Blazius Bleecker Hetherington swept into the 
little shop her imposing presence seemed to fill to over¬ 
flowing. Confronting Madge, who had advanced to 
meet her: 

“Please tell Miss Hilary I want to see her,” she com¬ 
manded graciously. 

Submerged in the depths of a big chair, her back to 
the door, Lynneth did not move. She knew she was in¬ 
visible to Mrs. Hetherington, and preferred to remain 
so; for a while, at least. 

“Miss Hilary is away at present; is there anything I 
can do for you ?” suggested Madge. 

Mrs. Hetherington hesitated. Then said with a mix¬ 
ture of anxiety and reluctance she somehow made per¬ 
fectly dignified; “I came to see if you could give me— 
er—give me Mrs. Tressel’s address? She was Miss Lyn¬ 
neth Frear, and I—er—understand that she was with 
you at one time.” 

Lynneth’s prompt emergence put an end to Madge 
Ayres’ embarrassment. 

“How do you do, Aunt Honoria?” she remarked de¬ 
murely. 

Mrs. Hetherington started and turned in manifest dis¬ 
may. Belief that Lynneth’s marriage would take her 
out of the shop had made that event very pleasing to her 



RIVERSIDE DRIVE 


191 


Step-aunt. And now to find her here after all! Next 
moment, the sight of the girl’s gloves, hat and parasol 
reassured the estimable matron. 

“My dear Lynneth,” she exclaimed with unusual ani¬ 
mation, “this is really too delightful! We were all so 
pleased to hear of your marriage, my dear, and I’m sure 
you know we wish you every happiness.” 

With an expert’s rapid appreciation, she noted the 
pretty dark blue straw hat that matched the simple serge 
gown, the smartly cut pumps and well-fitting gloves. 
There was genuine satisfaction in the kiss she gave 
Lynneth. As in the old days she had never been quite 
comfortable about Paul, so in these more recent ones 
she had never been quite comfortable about Paul’s 
daughter. 

Lynneth cordially returned the kiss and the greeting. 
She had always been fond of Aunt Honoria. “I’m so 
surprised to see you in town at this season!” she con¬ 
cluded. 

“Valerie’s been spending the summer abroad. She 
came home yesterday, and I motored up from Long 
Island to meet her and do a little shopping. We’re going 
back tomorrow, but as soon as we’re settled in town for 
the winter, you must bring your husband to dine with 
us. I hear he’s charming. You’re looking splendidly, 
my dear, and very happy!” 

“I am,” Lynneth replied simply. “You’ve all been 
well, I hope? You haven’t changed a bit!” 

It was the truth. Her talent for shutting her eyes to 
everything she did not want to see had enabled Mrs. 
Hetherington to maintain her complexion and her se¬ 
renity equally unimpaired. She was as little disturbed 
by the winds of the world as a plant cosily shut up in 
a hot-house. 

“Yes, perfectly well. But, my dear, there are so many 
things I want to talk to you about! Won’t you come 
home with me to lunch? Valerie had some errands to 


192 


LOVE AND LIFE 


do, and I don’t expect to see her until late this after¬ 
noon.” 

There really is a good deal to be said for habitual 
placidity. Not many women could so casually have ex¬ 
tended such an invitation to a niece whose very existence 
they had ignored for over a year and a half. It was a 
peace-offering, but a peace-offering presented in the mat¬ 
ter-of-course way one would pass the salt and pepper. 

A very little while ago Lynneth’s pride—that indomi¬ 
table pride of the sensitive poor—would have made her 
refusal immediate and instinctive. Now she had nothing 
to gain that she could not also give. It was Mrs. Geof¬ 
frey Tressel, not Lynneth Frear, who drove with Mrs. 
Hetherington to the house on Washington Square. 

She entered it with a curious sensation that only for 
her had time passed. Here it had stood still. Not a vase 
nor a jar, not a rug nor a picture, was missing from its 
usual place. The pontifical butler, who always preceded 
Mrs. Hetherington to town, that her comfort might not 
be endangered, received her “How do you do, Wilbur?” 
as impassively as if she had never left the house. 

Though Mrs. Hetherington asked Lynneth where she 
had been married, and why the ceremony had been so 
quietly performed, it was only as the prelude to a dis¬ 
cussion of her own affairs, which of course included 
those of Lisa and Valerie. 

“My dear, I only hope you may be as happy as Lisa 
is,” she remarked with the first spoonful of clam con¬ 
somme. “She and Phil are really an ideal couple! She’s 
become one of the most notable hostesses in New York, 
and has such interesting people at her house! All the 
advanced ones, you know, who think women oughtn’t 
to take their husbands’ names. It’s quite confusing 
sometimes, and just between ourselves, I’ll admit it does 
make me feel rather—well, rather queer, and just a 
little bit improper!” 

Lynneth smiled. She did not place much reliance on 


RIVERSIDE DRIVE 


193 


her aunt’s account of the relations between Phil and 
Lisa. And she remembered the times she had seen Phil 
and Valerie together, the winter after his marriage. 
There must have been others. But did Lisa know of 
them? There had at least been no break so evident it 
could not be ignored, dividing her from Phil. 

“And Valerie ?” she presently asked. “Is she en¬ 
gaged?” 

Mrs. Hetherington sighed over her mushrooms. “No, 
not yet. I’ve expected it half a dozen times at least, but 
somehow-. I’ll tell you in confidence, I think it’s be¬ 

cause Lisa hasn’t approved. She has a great deal of 
influence over Valerie; they’ve always been so devoted 
to each other! When Lisa says; ‘Mr. So-and-so may be 
very attractive, my dear Valerie, but I wouldn’t, I hon¬ 
estly wouldn’t advise you to accept him!’ Valerie never 
fails to listen to her, and take her advice.” 

Lynneth crumbled a hot biscuit with unwitting fingers. 
The months rolled back. Again she stood in the little 
upstairs sitting room. Again heard Lisa’s thin voice ut¬ 
tering the threat she had evidently not retracted, nor 
Valerie dared defy. . . . 

Mrs. Tletherington was speaking. “I don’t mind tell¬ 
ing you, Lynneth, that there’s a very delightful man 
quite devoted to Valerie just now. I like him better 
than any of the others, and I think she does too. He 
belongs to a very good family, Baltimore people of the 
nicest kind. He’s a strict Roman Catholic, but my dear 

girl is so broad-minded I don’t- Why, Valerie, I 

thought you weren’t coming back to lunch!” 

Lynneth looked up quickly. That white-and-gold 
vision which was Valerie Hetherington flashed upon her 
once again. 




CHAPTER SECOND 


But a second glance showed Lynneth that Valerie had 
changed. Not markedly. The golden hair was as won¬ 
derful as ever, the pink and white complexion as flawless; 
but there were two or three lines about the rosy mouth, 
and the madonna-blue eyes looked sullen. As they met 
Lynneth’s, an odd mixture of dislike and appeal sprang 
into those eyes, a mixture curiously repellent. 

Mrs. Hetherington stepped calmly into the breach of 
whose existence she was very nearly unaware. 

"I met Lynneth, and brought her home with me to 
lunch,” she remarked as if referring to a frequent, 
though agreeable occurrence. “Isn’t she looking well?” 

“Splendidly.” Valerie’s tone was noncommittal. She 
kissed the atmosphere somewhere in the neighbourhood 
of Lynneth’s cheek. “My congratulations,” she added 
in the same neutral tone. 

Lynneth was perfectly aware that this violation of 
the social usage which ordains that the bridegroom be 
congratulated, while good wishes are offered the bride, 
was deliberate, and meant to be significant. But her 
“Thank you,” was without any note of annoyance. No 
Spite of Valerie’s could hurt her now. 

Mrs. Hetherington talked on, mildly, steadily, and 
without effort. Only the putting in of an occasional 
word or phrase was necessary on the part of the other 
two, but presently it began to seem to Lynneth that 
Valerie’s replies were becoming longer. Longer, more¬ 
over, by the addition of sentences addressed especially to 
herself. And when the meal was ended: 

“I’ll take Lynneth upstairs and show her some of my 
IParis things, while you lie down,” she told her mother 

194 


RIVERSIDE DRIVE 


195 


with that air of doing as she pleased as a matter of 
course, which Lynneth knew so well. 

Refusal would have been discourteous. And Lynneth 
was curious. Valerie wanted something. So much was 
certain. What could that something be? 

For the first time since the day of Lisa’s wedding, she 
entered the little sitting room. And here too, except that 
it wore a summer garb of chintz coverings, nothing was 
changed. How could Valerie endure the constant pres¬ 
ence of all these dumb witnesses of her humiliation? 

Valerie closed the door, and turned, looking at her 
with a kind of hard-seeming defiance which Lynneth 
knew to be no stronger than so much painted lead. It 
would bend at the lightest pressure. 

“Lynneth,” she asked abruptly, “do you still hate me ?” 

“I never hated you,” Lynneth replied; and refrained 
from adding, “I despised you too thoroughly.” 

“I know I treated you badly.” Valerie had dropped 
the simulated defiance, and appeared relieved at being 
rid of it. Her tone was conciliatory. “Of course, I 
really knew all the time that you hadn’t the least idea 
of—of ” 

“Of what you were cheating me into doing? No, I 
hadn’t. You see,” Lynneth added reflectively, “you see, 
I admired you very much.” 

She did not say “I trusted you.” She knew this pam¬ 
pered beauty wanted admiration, not trust. 

Valerie was not clever, but neither was she stupid 
enough entirely to miss Lynneth’s meaning. And she 
disliked being reminded of any loss of admiration. Dis¬ 
liked it the more because of her reluctant, inward ad¬ 
mission that the shy little cousin she had used as a pawn 
in her game of amusing herself had developed into a per¬ 
sonality. At every other important moment in their re¬ 
lations she had been all but completely self-absorbed. 
Perception now had the force of revelation. 

She looked down upon her, puzzled, her plans awry. 



196 


LOVE AND LIFE 


Lynneth had seated herself, and this yielding of what 
has been an advantage since man first stood upright was 
mute testimony to a proven self-confidence, as differ¬ 
ent from self-assurance as steel from lead. 

“You know I was kind to you,” Valerie insisted; and 
had the grace to wince a little under the clear look of 
the dark grey eyes. “Oh, I admit I—I used you—some¬ 
times ! Still-” 

“You want something, Valerie. What is it?” 

With one stroke, Lynneth had cut the knot at which 
Valerie was feebly plucking. 

“I want you to stand by me, against Lisa!” 

The old imperiousness sounded again in Valerie’s 
voice, showed itself again in her bearing. But Lynneth 
knew now that it could be dominant only so long as 
it remained unchallenged. 

“How ?” she asked tersely, moving a little in the 
deeply upholstered chair. 

Valerie’s reply was indirect. “Did mamma say any¬ 
thing to you about Andrew Larford?” 

“She spoke of a man from Baltimore. Is he the one?” 

“Yes. He—I want to marry him. And Lisa-” she 

clenched her hands angrily. “Oh, how I hate Lisa!” 

“So many thanks for the compliment!” 

The thin voice was as metallic as ever, and as colour¬ 
less, even on a note of triumph. Valerie turned. Lyn¬ 
neth, whose seat faced the door, met Lisa’s ironic 
glance with one of quiet scrutiny. And she did not 
rise. For she alone had nothing to fear. 

“You were listening!” Valerie cried bitterly; feeble 
even in her bitterness. 

Looking from one half-sister to the other, Lynneth 
realized the thoroughness with which their relations had 
been reversed. Once it was Lisa who hated, and Valerie 
who regarded that hatred with contemptuous amusement. 
Now Valerie hated, and Lisa was contemptuous—but 




RIVERSIDE DRIVE 


197 


Lynneth knew that Lisa’s contempt was far more dan¬ 
gerous than Valerie’s hatred. 

Lisa replied only by a shrug. When she spoke, it was 
to Lynneth: “Whose side are you going to take this 
time ?” 

A movement of Lynneth’s expressive hands repudi¬ 
ated the question, and everything connected with it. 

“Your quarrels don’t concern me,” she said coolly. 
“I came here today on account of your mother. I didn’t 
expect to see either of you.” 

“And didn’t want to! You’re frank, at least! Bat 
since you are here-” 

“It’s not necessary for me to stay!” 

“Oh, Lynnie dear, do back me up! Lisa’s been mak¬ 
ing my life perfectly miserable!” 

“You exaggerate, as usual,” Lisa remarked, idly scru¬ 
tinizing her pointed, highly polished finger-nails. Her 
back was to the light, and the brim of her hat. drawn 
far down over her eyes, obscured her face. “You exag¬ 
gerate, as usual. I’ve only interfered with some of your 
pleasures. And now there’s another man, and you fancy 
you want to marry him!” 

Angry tears stood in Valerie’s eyes. “Yes, I do !” 
Her voice broke. “If you weren’t such a mean, spiteful 


Lisa’s smile was cruel. She spoke slowly, savouring 
the words on her lips. “Of course you’re perfectly free 
to do as you choose. Only—you know the risk!” 

Lynneth had risen. “Be generous, Lisa!” she ex¬ 
claimed, denial forgotten in pity. “Be generous! Don’t 
you think Valerie’s been punished enough?” 

The long jade pendants, hanging from Lisa’s ears, 
swung with her shake of the head. “No,” she replied 
with the same slow smile. “No; I do not.” 

“You’re ever so much stronger than she is! You’ve 
been able to make a life for yourself—oh yes, I’ve heard 




198 


LOVE AND LIFE 


about you now and then! If she cares for this 
man-” 

“I think she does,” Lisa interrupted judicially. “I 
really think she does. As much as she’s able to care for 
any one!” 

‘‘Then why not let her marry him? You’re too much 
of a person, Lisa, to go on forever playing dog in the 
manger! Give Valerie a chance.” 

“What chance, please, did Valerie give me?” 

“I’m not upholding Valerie! It’s you—you’re not 
giving yourself a chance. You’ve had your revenge. 
She’s in your power. Let her go before she’s desperate! 
Besides, you’re somebody yourself now”—with swift, 
intuitive skill she had found and touched the controlling 
cords of Lisa’s vanity—“you’re somebody yourself, not 
just your parents’ daughter! You can’t do what you 
might have done a year or two ago. You’re a leader, 
you’ve a leader’s prominence, a leader’s responsibilities!” 

She had used the only argument that could have 
affected Lisa. And that it had affected her, the long 
pause showed. As she walked restlessly to the window 
and stood a moment looking out on the dusty trees and 
withered grass of Washington Square, Lynneth glanced 
at Valerie, commanding silence with the slightest of 
gestures. A word from Valerie might undo all that had 
been accomplished—if accomplishment there were! 

Lisa left the window, turning again to Lynneth. 

“I’ve got to think things over,” she said deliberately. 
“I’m not sure. . . . Perhaps you’re right! Will you 
come and see me tomorrow? Or would you rather I 
came to you? I can talk to you.” Her lips twisted in 
a smile, not cruel this time, only ironic. “I can talk to 
you quietly, and I can’t to—my sister.” 

Lynneth drew back a step. She would so much prefer 
to stand aside from this morass of treachery and revenge 
and spite! But she met Valerie’s imploring look, and 
it was not in her to deny help when so entreated. 



RIVERSIDE DRIVE 


199 


Valerie loved this Andrew Larford—in her way. And 
however different that way of love might be from Lyn- 
neth’s own, she would not criticize it. “His own life 
for each!” Valerie should have her life if she, Lynneth, 
could help her win through to it. 

“Yes,” she agreed, though her tone was frankly re¬ 
luctant. “Yes, I’ll come to you tomorrow.” Lisa, with 
her cruel smile and snatching eyes should not bring her 
calculated vengefulness into those rooms where she and 
Geoffrey had spent so many perfect hours! “But are 
you back in town already?” 

“Only for a few days.” Lisa was fumbling in her 
gold mesh bag, hunting for a card. “We’re on our way 
to the opening of our new community settlement in the 
mountains, and it isn’t quite ready for us yet.” She 
had flicked each pronoun with a light emphasis. “Here’s 
my address. If you’ll—but somehow, I fancy you’d 
rather not come to lunch!” She had a tincture of the 
discernment Valerie lacked. 

Lynneth’s look met hers squarely. She did not want 
to break bread with Lisa. 

“You’re right. I’d prefer coming in the afternoon,” 
she said. 

“Very well, then. I’ll expect you about four.” 
Lisa’s acceptance of the situation was complete, her 
departure as abrupt as her appearance. 

With the closing of the door behind her, Valerie burst 
into protestations of affection and everlasting gratitude. 
Lynneth checked them sharply. 

“You’ve nothing to thank me for; I’m not doing it for 
you,” she said emphatically. 

“Then why are you doing it?” demanded Valerie with 
much pettishness. 

Lynneth paused. Explain that it was a sort of thank- 
offering for Geoffrey? A service to love, love which, 
however different, must yet have some faint degree of 
kinship to the glory Geoffrey had revealed to her? She 


200 


LOVE AND LIFE 


could no more Have said these things to Valerie than 
she could have stripped herself naked in the streets. 

At last, and quietly: “So long as I do it, isn’t that 
enough?” she asked. 

And in her tone was a finality even Valerie under¬ 
stood, and did not attempt to dispute. 


CHAPTER THIRD 


Lisa and Valerie and all that concerned them van¬ 
ished from Lynneth’s mind when, returning to the hotel, 
she found there a letter from Geoffrey. But in spite of 
its lover-like ardour it disappointed her bitterly. For 
it postponed the date of his home-coming. 

‘Til be finished with the ‘personally conducted’ in 
three more days,” he wrote, “for which the gods be 
thanked! But, dearest heart, I’ve got to make a little 
side trip into Arizona. There’s a small aerodrome 
tucked away on the edge of the desert, where they’re 
trying out a new engine very much on the quiet. I’m 
to give it the once over, and—they hope!—my valuable 
endorsement. Are you duly impressed, my lady, with 
your husband’s importance? Only the truth is said 
husband feels like condemning all planes to destruction 
and all inventors to everlasting perdition. But we’ll 
have to try to forgive the wretched things, since they’re 
going to provide us with plenty of cake and jam as well 
as butter on our bread! 

“Just how long this confounded jaunt is going to take 
I haven’t the ghost of an idea, but ‘It is an order!’ as 
Rod Malvin always says. And that reminds me. One 
of the letters you forwarded was from him. He’s sail¬ 
ing the last of the month, and may land in New York 
before I get back from this beastly trip. If he does, 
he’ll probably come straight up to the hotel. I sent him 
the address, and told him I’d meet him in New York 
before I knew anything about this extra job. I hate it, 
but I must admit it’s going to be a good thing for me 
professionally. And once it’s over I’ll come rushing 
back to you as fast as the fastest train can bring me, and 

201 


202 


LOVE AND LIFE 


then, sweetheart mine, I’ll have you in my arms again, 
and nothing else will matter the least little bit.” 

It was a very long letter, page after page covered with 
small firm writing, legible as print. His wish that she 
should know and see all he knew and saw, shone through 
every line of it, and with the wish his impatience and 
his longing. 

Sitting alone on the low couch by the window where 
they had sat together, looking at those lights across the 
water he so loved to watch, she read the many closely 
written sheets over and over again. Then as at last 
she folded them away, while memory repeated the words 
he had written, there came to her, swiftly, insidiously, 
an overpowering consciousness of his presence there 
beside her. . . . 

It seemed as if she had but to turn her head to see 
him standing looking down at her with that absorbed 
gaze she knew so well. And while her whole being 
thrilled, the familiar sense of security, of perfect trust, 
enfolded her anew. 

The insistent clamour of the telephone brought her to 
her feet, startled as one suddenly roused from profound 
slumber. Full realization of the matter-of-fact came 
to her only with the sound of Madge Ayres’ voice over 
the wire. 

“Hello!—Oh, hello, Lynneth! I called up to tell you 
I’ve just had a telegram from Joan. She’ll be back next 
week.” 

“Good! I’m ever so glad! Where is she?” 

“The telegram was sent from some little town in 
Ohio. What do you suppose she could have been doing 
out there?” 

“I haven’t a notion. Anyway, the great thing is, she’s 
coming back.” 

“Yes, on Thursday. It’s all too awfully funny! 
What do you think could have taken her out there? 


RIVERSIDE DRIVE 


208 


She never acted so—so queerly before. I can’t make 
it out at all!” 

“Nor I. Perhaps she’ll explain when she gets back.” 

“Wouldn’t it be funny if there was a man in the case, 
after all? It would be a mighty good joke on me if 
both you and Joan went off and got married and left 
me whistling to keep my courage up!” 

There were times when Madge rubbed Lynneth the 
wrong way, and the tone in which that last speech was 
uttered rasped her. Justice made her admit it was be¬ 
cause of her knowledge. She couldn’t laugh over Joan’s 
spinsterhood, not with the memory of Joan’s bitter 
words in her mind; “There’s something wrong with me, 
something—lacking.” . . . “The grey sisterhood of the 
unwanted.” 

She said: “I’ll try to see you in a day or two. We 
must have some sort of celebration for Joan.” 

Madge felt snubbed. She didn’t know why, being 
innocent of intentional offense. Her tone turned chilly; 
“Very well. I’ll see what I can do. Good-by!” 

Lynneth was aware of the chill. Her thought as she 
rang off was that she must do something to make up 
again with Madge. 

Geoffrey’s note, thrust into the bosom of her gown, 
rustled against her breast. She put it to her cheek; and 
Madge and Joan followed Lisa and Valerie into ob¬ 
livion. 

But a promise is a promise, and after a morning spent 
in writing to Geoffrey, Lynneth decided to walk across 
the Park to Lisa’s apartment on the East Side. There 
was a mail box in the hotel foyer, and she stopped 
beside it to post her letter with the air of detachment 
she had learned to assume for the protection of her 
privacy. 

Now that September was nearly gone, many of the 
habitual residents of the hotel were returning, giving 


204 


LOVE AND LIFE 


Lynneth her first glimpse of the well-to-do female 
strays, who having no acquaintances in New York and 
nothing much to do, try to become acquainted with 
their fellow lodgers, and armed with knitting or “fancy 
work” hang about the public rooms on the chance of 
finding some one with whom to gossip. The ice once 
broken, they drop in on one another at all hours, relat¬ 
ing their own most intimate affairs as well as those of 
their friends and families, with frequent reversions to 
their one inexhaustible topic—complaints about the 
food. 

Lynneth and her concerns, who she was, what she 
was, where she came from and what she was doing, had 
provided a subject for discussion they had chewed and 
worried and returned to again and again. Several had 
endeavoured to “get to know her,” but Lynneth, when 
she chose, could be the most unapproachable of the un¬ 
approachable, and diamonds and automobiles did not im¬ 
press her in the very least. Give these women a “Good 
morning” in the elevator, and they would take an after¬ 
noon in your apartment, talking clothes, servants, opera¬ 
tions, obstetrics and scandal. 

Her cultivated unawareness of their existence was 
entirely genuine on this particular afternoon. Her 
thoughts were of Geoffrey—when weren’t they?—and 
she was doing her best to turn some of them to Lisa, 
Valerie, and the coming interview. She didn’t succeed 
very well, and found herself at the door of Lisa’s apart¬ 
ment without a definite plan of any kind. 

The drawing-room into which she was presently 
shown laid forcible hold on her attention. Whatever 
else one might think of it, one must admit that it was 
arresting. 

The walls were panelled in ebony and dull black silk; 
the carpet and hangings were of black velvet. The 
ebony furniture was upholstered in black silk brocade, 
and the same material covered the cushions piled on the 


RIVERSIDE DRIVE 


20 5 


long sofa. In one corner a small fountain sent a slender 
jet of water high into the air, to fall, hissing softly, 
back into a white marble basin—glaringly white against 
its sombre background. In another was a large aqua¬ 
rium through whose cloudy water swam small, goblin¬ 
like fish, with strange goggle eyes. The stagnant, airless 
atmosphere was heavy with the fumes of burning in¬ 
cense, placed before a large, bestial figure of the horrible 
Indian goddess Kali which, carved out of teak and 
standing on a teak pedestal, was the presiding genius of 
the room. The only spots of colour were the dull green 
weeds amid which the fishes swam, some leprous-looking 
orchids, and the gaudy cover of a book lying face down¬ 
wards on the sofa. Lynneth glanced at the title, and 
knew it for the translation of a foreign novel, much 
condemned for its deliberate lewdness. Evidently, Lisa 
had lost none of her taste for the erotic. 

What a sickening place it was! Redolent of the ab¬ 
normal, of a cultivated fungus-growth of unclean inter¬ 
ests, unclean emotions. Lynneth longed to fling open 
the thickly curtained windows, to let in a flood of air 
and sunlight. . . . 

The black velvet curtain screening a doorway opened, 
and closed again behind Lisa. 

Her eyes grown accustomed to the dim light, Lynneth 
scrutinized the other woman curiously. Lisa was al¬ 
most as arresting as her drawing-room, and in much the 
same way. She wore a make-up insolent in its glaring 
artificiality of dead-white liquid powder coating face 
and neck, of shaped and darkened eyebrows and lashes, 
beneath which her pale eyes looked glassy. Her mouth 
was smeared with crimson, her lustreless hair had been 
dyed with henna. The green of the long jade ear-rings 
hanging from her scrupulously concealed ears was re¬ 
peated in her transparent batik tea-gown, insolent too 
in its revelation of the extreme scantiness of her cloth¬ 
ing. 


206 


LOVE AND LIFE 


She smiled; but she did not offer her hand. 

“Sit down,” she remarked indifferently, motioning 
Lynneth to a chair, and carefully disposing her own 
green draperies amid the black brocade cushions of the 
sofa. “Sit down. How do you like my room?” Then 
re-arranging the beaded tassels of her girdle; “No polite 
lying, please! You don’t like it, do you?” 

“I think it’s horrible!” Lynneth blushed at her own 
frankness. Instinct had made repudiation imperative. 

Lisa’s pallid eyes wandered slowly around. “I sup¬ 
pose it is,” she said with feline complacency. “I hope 
it is! I meant it to be. At least, it isn’t commonplace !” 

“No. It certainly isn’t commonplace.” Lynneth’s 
assent was emphatic. 

“I’ll show you the rest of the apartment before you 
go. I think you’ll like it almost as much as this!” 

The remark scarcely admitted of any reply. Lynneth 
did not attempt to make one. The heavy atmosphere 
stifled her, the image of Kali grinned at her obscenely. 
And Lisa was a part of it all, a part of this abhorrent 
place she had created. . . . 

“You asked me to come here.” It was neither a ques¬ 
tion nor a statement, but a demand. She wanted to 
finish with what had been thrust upon her, to finish, and 
escape. 

“Yes. Yes, I did. You’d like to know my reason.” 
Lisa’s smile was no less metallic than her voice. It 
touched only her lips, never reaching her eyes. “But 
I’m not going to tell you. Not my real one. Do I 
puzzle you, generally?” Again the feline complacence. 

“When I-” Lynneth caught herself up. 

“When you think of me at all!” Lisa’s dryness had 
an element of chagrin. “I don’t bulk very large in your 
cosmos, do I? Still, you’re a woman. After what you 
saw and heard the day I was married, you must have 
wondered ?” 



RIVERSIDE DRIVE 


207 


“I did!” Subtle inflections filled the two words with 
implications. 

“You couldn’t understand my going on with it, could 
you?” Lisa pressed the point, her egotism dominant. 
She would rather be loathed than ignored. 

“No; I couldn’t.” If Lisa wanted frankness she 
should have it, unvarnished and unadorned. 

“I’ll tell you.” As Lisa moved, making herself more 
comfortable among the pillows, she touched the gaudily 
bound novel. Glancing at it, she smiled again. At last, 
she held Lynneth’s attention. 

“I was curious—horribly curious.” She lingered a 
little on the phrase. “I’d read a lot; you remember? 
But reading wasn’t enough. Not for me. I was— 
horribly curious. Lots of girls are. I had to know. 
I’d have paid almost any price for—knowledge. I 
bought it as cheaply as I could!” She flung out her 
bare arms in a restless gesture; her greedy eyes burned. 
“I had to know!” she repeated. 

“You married for that?” Lynneth exclaimed incredu¬ 
lously. 

“Mostly. There were other reasons, of course. I 
couldn’t” — again she looked about the room — “I 
couldn’t have done this sort of thing in Washington 
Square—not on the North Side! And in spite of all 
the ‘modernist’ talk, for women—young women—of 
our class, the only way to be free without becoming 
more or less—well, declassee, is to get married.” 

Lynneth’s sensitive lips were a little compressed. She 
did not want these confidences which were being forced 
upon her. But having confidences forced upon her was 
something to which she had grown accustomed. She 
drew them as a magnet does iron. 

“There’s almost nothing,” Lisa went on, “there’s al¬ 
most nothing you can’t do if you’re married, and reason¬ 
ably careful. It’s as foolish to run risks as it is to let 



208 


LOVE AND LIFE 


what old fogies call ‘morals’ stand in your way. I 
never”—the greedy, snatching look was in her eyes— 
“I never let them stand in mine!” 

“Haven’t we wandered pretty far from the point?” 
It was Lynneth now who spoke dryly. “My impression 
is that we weren’t to discuss morality versus expediency, 
but simply—Valerie!” 

A moment’s silence. Then; “I wish you liked me!” 
Lisa exclaimed irrelevantly. 

Lynneth felt niggardly before that implicit demand. 
She liked to give, and to give with both hands. “I’d 
like you better if you’d let Valerie go!” she exclaimed. 

“I will!” Lisa sat up suddenly, biting out the words. 

“Good! I’m so glad! You’ll give her back the 
letter ?” 

What Lynneth did, she did thoroughly. But though 
her tone was confident, she expected Lisa to temporize. 
Which Lisa straightway proceeded to do. 

“I didn’t say that! I must keep it for—oh well, for 
my own protection. Valerie’s fancy for this Larford 
man won’t last long. And she’s not particularly fond 
of me!” 

Lynneth knew Lisa was lying. Placed beside her 
remarks of a minute or two before, the statement was 
cynical in its unblushing falsity. But accusation would 
be worse than foolish. She too temporized now, her 
grey gaze on the colourless eyes over which the lashes, 
heavy with blackening, flickered and dropped. 

“I don’t believe she’d ever-” 

“Oh, wouldn’t she!” Lisa interrupted. “I’d never 
dream of trusting her. But I keep my word.” Empha¬ 
sizing each separate syllable, she added: “You can tell 
her, I promise not to interfere with her marriage.” 

“You’d better tell her so yourself!” There was noth¬ 
ing of gratification in Lynneth’s tone. Lisa had given a 
promise, and Lisa kept her promises. So much grace 
at least was hers! But the pale eyes held a look of 



RIVERSIDE DRIVE 


209 


furtive triumph that filled her with distrust, even while 
she scolded herself for being distrustful. 

“No; I’d rather it would come from you. After all, 
I’m doing it on your account, partly! You’re the only 
person I feel safe with. Safe, that is, to say what I 
please. It’s a strain, sometimes, living up to this”—her 
gesture swept the room—“though it is a relief after 
North Washington Square!” 

“Why not modify it, then? There’s a good deal of 
lee-way between North Washington Square, and”—- 
Lynneth glanced at the grotesque idol—“and Kali!” 

“For you. Not for me.” Again Lisa’s egotism was 
demanding attention, no matter how reluctantly given. 
She went on with gloating eagerness: “In the between- 
ground, I’d be a nobody. Kali makes me a personality. 
People love to talk! I” —she smiled again, that smile 
of the lips her eyes denied—“I give them something 
to talk about!” 

Lynneth rose. “I must go now,” she said hastily. 
“I want to stop in at the shop and see Mrs. Ayres before 
closing-time.” 

Lisa started to speak, glanced at the tiny enamelled 
watch on her wrist, and changed her mind. Slipping 
from the sofa with a slithering of green draperies; 
“You’ll tell Valerie?” she said. “And you’ll come 
again ?” 

Refusal had somehow become impossible. Unwill¬ 
ingly Lynneth agreed. “Yes; I’ll write to Valerie.” 

“And you’ll come again?” Lisa repeated, a veiled 
mockery in her voice. 

Lynneth’s eyes met hers with something of distrust, 
but more of pity. “Who knows?” 

As she spoke, the door behind her opened. Phil 
Armytage came in. And with him, Danvers Calhoun. 

Since she had left New York for West Hillsdale, they 
had not met. She had written him immediately after 


210 


LOVE AND LIFE 


her engagement, and received a reply which was a model 
of dignified resignation. 

His greeting was eager, Phil’s perfunctory. They all 
shook hands, exchanging the usual civilities. Then Cal¬ 
houn remarked pleasantly: 

“When Phil said you’d come up to town, Mrs. Army- 
tage, I told him he must let me drop in, just for a few 
minutes. I’ve been here most of the summer, and it 
seems ages since I’ve had a glimpse of either of you!” 
He looked sadly, not at Lisa, but at Lynneth. 

Lisa caught the look. “How very flattering—to us!” 
she exclaimed with emphasized sarcasm. And added; 
“When was it we last saw one another? Do you re¬ 
member ?” 

Calhoun was annoyed. And he had failed to secure 
from Phil the invitation to the mountains for which he 
had been fishing. Suddenly he decided to try an experi¬ 
ment, since apparently he had little to lose. 

“Oh, I’ve a good memory!” he declared. “That’s one 
thing I can say for myself. The last time I saw you 
was at the Demarests’ dinner, and the last time I saw 
Phil was the day I met him having tea with your sister 
down at ‘The Fountain/ last spring. Did you find the 
taxi you wanted, Phil? ‘The Fountain’s’ so dreadfully 
out of the way!” 

Silence. Lynneth felt as if caterpillars were crawling 
over her bare skin. She recalled the times she had seen 
Phil and Valerie together. She had wondered then if 
Lisa knew. . . . And the promise Lisa had just made? 

Lisa smiled. Her voice was like a file across the 
silence; “Phil and Valerie share a passion—for out-of- 
the-way tea rooms. They’re always making discoveries. 
I’ve promised to go with them some day, and I suppose 
I’ll have to do it. I—keep my promises 1” 

Her eyes were on Lynneth’s. But that reassurance, 
that repeated, “I keep my promises!” Was it really a 
reassurance? Or was it—a threat? 


RIVERSIDE DRIVE 


211 


Automatically, Lynneth took her leave. Lisa went 
with her to the door, and there spoke quickly, words 
meant for her alone; “Tell Valerie I won’t interfere 
with her marriage.” 

Her doubt had been seen, and answered. Yet it re¬ 
mained. 

Once more in the street, she drew a long breath. 
Filled with dust and automobile smoke though it was, 
the outside air seemed clean! 

At the bookshop she found Madge busy with an 
important customer, and so went away, agreeing to re¬ 
turn within a day or two. As she walked briskly home¬ 
wards, up the Avenue and through the Park—Geoffrey 
was an inveterate walker, and she was determined not 
to get out of practice—thinking of the letter to him 
she meant to begin that evening, other ideas came stray¬ 
ing into her mind, thoughts of the women whose lives 
had touched her own. 

There was Madge, who looked upon love as a thing 
of moonshine and roses, fading swiftly and inevitably. 
Then came Valerie whose love Lisa was probably quite 
right in calling a fancy, an infatuation. And Lisa her¬ 
self, who had used her husband as a stepping-stone to 
freedom. . . . 

These, the married women! And apart from them 
stood solitary Joan of the grey sisterhood whose mem¬ 
bers denied their order- 

Her own happiness seemed almost a thing to fear. 



CHAPTER FOURTH 


Lynneth wrote to Valerie, repeating Lisa's promise, 
while underscoring Lisa's refusal to part with the peril¬ 
ous letter. Then having done her best in this affair 
which was very surely none of hers, she gladly ejected 
it from her mind 

She was using some of her tiny capital for the pur¬ 
chase of a modest trousseau, which just because it was 
so modest, required very careful planning. It must be 
completed before Geoffrey returned, and a telegram had 
told her that his return was now a matter of only a 
few days. Her heart sang as she checked them off 
on the calendar, simply for the childish pleasure of 
scratching them out, and noted how small a number 
were left. Had it not been for the side trip to inspect 
the new aeroplane motor, he would be with her now! 
But regrets were futile, and his telegram assured her 
that he was to start on his homeward way this very 
evening. 

Geoffrey was coming! 

No wonder the sky was so blue and the air so clear, 
no wonder the river rippled and sparkled in the sun¬ 
shine! Her happiness was so abundant, some of it must 
have spilled over, and that was why the little white boats 
bobbed so gayly at their moorings and all the world 
seemed full of laughter! 

Geoffrey was coming! 

The words were a song, a lilt, poetry incarnate. Geof¬ 
frey was coming! 

They had arranged that she should write to the Junc¬ 
tion, where he would be obliged to change cars, waiting 
a couple of hours for the east-bound train. Her pen 

212 


RIVERSIDE DRIVE 


213 


rushed over the paper, but it couldn’t keep pace with her 
flying thoughts. And even at their best, mere words 
couldn’t express a minute fraction of her love for him, 
not if she had an ocean of ink, and all the trees in all 
the forests felled for paper! But he knew, he under¬ 
stood. What need had they of words, save perhaps for 
the lesser things of life, who were one, one now, and 
for all time! 

Yet the joy of giving with eyes and lips and clinging 
arms being temporarily denied her, she welcomed the 
secondary delight of pouring out her over-full heart to 
him, there on the insentient paper. 

The letter finished, she did not close it. No time 
would be gained by posting it now, and she would like 
to add a line or two after seeing Madge that afternoon. 
First she would shop for stockings to match the daffodil- 
yellow gown—she did so hope he’d like it! 

Seventy-two hours more! Then—their second honey¬ 
moon. And they would never be separated again. She 
hoped she had been brave. She had tried hard not 
to worry or mope. But she couldn’t, she couldn’t go 
through it again! Nor could he. It was for both of 
them worse than being maimed, to be apart even for 
a little while. 

After lunch she went down Riverside Drive and across 
Fifth Avenue, riding on top of a bus. It was one of 
those early autumn days when, though the sun is still 
warm, there is a tang to the air. Swiftly racing white 
clouds which held no threat of storm, sent splendid 
purple shadows swooping magnificently over the river 
and down upon the Palisades on the opposite shore. A 
fleet of grey battleships, flying the beautiful flag of the 
United States, lay drawn up in two long, imposing lines, 
while bustling little power-boats flitted back and forth 
between them and the various landing stages. 

From the front seat of the lurching vehicle Lynnetfi 
absorbed the scene with eager eyes, tucking its details 


214 


LOVE AND LIFE 


away in her memory until she could write about them 
to Geoffrey. She couldn’t fully enjoy anything, until 
she had shared her enjoyment with him. Phrases 
shaped themselves in her thoughts; “The sky was like 
a great blue diamond, Geoff. And the clouds were puffs 
of smoke. They reminded me of the mists that used to 
steam up from the valley-” 

Fifth Avenue was all astir with that renewal of ac¬ 
tivity which comes each autumn. Everything seemed 
fresh and gay and hopeful, and Lynneth loved it all. 
She could have laughed aloud from sheer delight in liv¬ 
ing. With the warm current of her rich and ardent 
youth speeding through her veins, with the blue sky and 
the glad sunlight shining in her very soul, crowned with 
a love that transcended all her dreams, her pulses 
throbbed to the song in her heart. Geoffrey was com- 
ing! 

When she reached the stately white shop which was 
her destination, she made her purchases joyfully, com¬ 
paring tints and shades and textures with a happy, 
eager intentness. Looking her best had become a matter 
of tremendous importance now, when looking her best 
meant pleasing Geoffrey! 

Her errands finished, she walked up to the bookshop, 
and found Madge tidying disordered shelves. 

“Not another word have I had from Joan,” she 
grumbled. “I don’t know whether she’s coming tomor¬ 
row, or the next day or the day after! She didn’t give 
me any address, so I can’t telegraph. I must say I think 
she’s showing mighty little consideration! It isn’t,”— 
she reverted to the expression Lynneth had used—“it 
isn’t a bit like Joan!” 

“I haven’t heard from her at all!” Lynneth pouted, 
half in fun. “I don’t believe she even knows I’m 
married!” 

“Gracious heaven! To think of any one’s being ig- 



RIVERSIDE DRIVE 


215 


norant of that world-shaking event!” There was a tinc¬ 
ture of envy in Madge’s ridicule. She liked Lynneth, 
and would have been sorry had any serious mischance 
befallen her. But she was not one of those rare people 
who can rejoice whole-heartedly in the happiness of 
some one else. And it really didn’t seem fair that Lyn¬ 
neth should have everything! 

Lynneth laughed gleefully. It was easier for her to 
laugh than to, this day! “Am I as absurd as all that? 
Goodness! And I’ve tried so hard to act like a staid 
and accustomed matron!” 

“You’re a dear, and I’m a cat! Come into the office 
and have some tea. ... I got hold of Mrs. O’Flaherty 
—you remember her, don’t you?—and set her to work 
cleaning the apartment. Then I thought tomorrow 
morning you and I might run over there and fix the 
place up a bit and make it look nice and homey. You’ll 
come ?” 

“Of course, I will! Mrs. O’Flaherty puts every chair 
flat against the wall and leaves her cleaning rags all 
over the place.” 

“Invariably! And knocks every picture crooked.” 

So they chatted on, and it was all very pleasant, and 
very commonplace. The hours before Geoffrey came 
must be disposed of somehow! 

Madge persuaded Lynneth to dine with her at one of 
the tea rooms they had often gone to, where the wait¬ 
resses all knew them, and the plump proprietress herself 
beamed upon them, and wished Lynneth happiness. It 
was half-past eight, and after, when she got back to the 
hotel. As she alighted from the bus, a newsboy offered 
her the last of his evening papers, and she bought it, 
giving the child a quarter and refusing change with a 
smile. It was a way of sharing her gladness! 

The hotel lobby was ablaze with light. Men and 
women crowded the lounge, lolling on chairs and sofas, 


216 


LOVE AND LIFE 


steeped in after-dinner torpor. Going to the desk for 
her key, she noticed a very tall, very lean man in evening 
dress, who, standing with his back towards her, was 
evidently asking some question of the clerk. That the 
question concerned herself was proved when, an instant 
later, the latter caught sight of her, and she heard him 
say; “Here’s Mrs. Tressel now!” 

The tall man swung sharply about. He had, Lynneth 
thought, the brightest blue eyes she’d ever seen, eyes the 
brighter and bluer because of their contrast with his 
skin, bronzed to an almost Arabian darkness. He was, 
apparently, somewhere in the middle forties. His brown 
hair showed grey at the temples; there were net-works 
of fine lines around his eyes and at the corners of his 
large, straight-cut mouth;* two almost perpendicular 
wrinkles divided his heavy eyebrows. He had a fined- 
down look, the thoroughbred’s indescribable, uncon¬ 
scious air of race. Lynneth’s instinctive thought was 
that here was a man to be relied upon in a panic. She 
was confident of his identity before he said, a little 
stiffly, with quick speech and unmistakeable accent: 

“Mrs. Tressel? I’m Roderick Malvin. Perhaps 
Tressel told you-?” 

Lynneth gave him her hand, and with it her prettiest, 
friendliest smile. She had long ago made up her mind 
to like Colonel Sir Roderick Malvin, who “ought to 
have had the Victoria Cross, and never got a darn 
thing!” Now the liking had come, instantly and with¬ 
out effort. 

“He’s told me a great deal about you!” she exclaimed 
cordially. “And I—Pm ever so glad to see you. Geof¬ 
frey was detained—he won’t be back for two days yet 
—but he wrote me you might come.’* 

From his six feet three, Malvin looked down on her 
gravely. His somewhat austere face softened; “Then 
you’ll let me tell you what pleasure it gave me to hear 



RIVERSIDE DRIVE 


217 


of his great good fortune, and wish you every happi¬ 
ness?” 

“Thank you.” She paused, meeting his swift straight 
look with one as swift, as straight. “There’s a sort of 
loggia on the hotel roof, where people sit in the evenings 
to watch the boats on the river. Suppose we go up 
there—and talk?” 

His probing look relaxed, became grateful. He had 
seen the matrimonial knife sever the bonds of more 
than a few masculine friendships. Now he dismissed 
his apprehensions. He would not lose Geoffrey be¬ 
cause of any petty jealousy on the part of Geoffrey’s 
wife. 

Lynneth, already moving towards the elevator, 
stopped suddenly. “Wait a minute, please! I might 
as well get my key now.” 

As she spoke, and turned, the folded newspaper, 
tucked forgotten under her left arm, slipped and fell to 
the floor. In falling, it opened, showing the headlines. 

Malvin stooped for it. And those headlines screamed 
at him. . . . 

He caught up the paper, crushing it together. But 
she had seen his face. 

The lights reeled, spinning about her. His words 
reached her from a distance, out of an immense void. 

“Mrs. Tressel!—Please—oh, please-!” 

She did not know that she had laid hold of the paper; 
she did not know that her voice was toneless, perfectly 
composed. 

“Give it to me,” she said. 

Already people were staring at them, whispering curi¬ 
ously to one another. Somewhere a door slammed. . . . 

He could only yield. Yield with misery in his heart 
for her coming pain. She took the newspaper from him. 
But before she saw them, she was all but sure of the 
headlines’ message; 



218 


LOVE AND LIFE 


“Famous Aviator Killed. Geoffrey Tressel Crashes 
To His Death In Aeroplane Accident.” 

Darkness closed round her. Her two hands gripped 
the paper, twisting, crushing, tearing. 

Suddenly they relaxed. The fragments fluttered to 
the floor. She stood rigid, staring straight before her, 
staring, staring into the darkness. . . . 


BOOK V 


STUYVESANT PARK 



BOOK V 

STUYVESANT PARK 


CHAPTER FIRST 

Through the days and weeks and months that fol¬ 
lowed, Lynneth lived enveloped in a grey mist of pain. 
Only her suffering seemed real to her. Beyond the grey 
mist were illusions, colourless shadow-shapes of men 
and women who moved about, and talked, and pretended 
to be actually existing, actually alive—how could they be 
alive, when Geoffrey was dead? 

He who was so vital, so radiant with youth and en¬ 
ergy, loving life and living, was dead. God had let him 
die! 

There were times when she couldn’t believe that he 
was never coming back to her. It wasn’t possible, it 
wasn’t even thinkable! It must, it must be only a dream, 
from which she would presently awake to feel his arms 
about her. And then realization closed pitilessly upon 
her, and crushed her down to despair. 

Memories of that last day haunted her. They made 
her feel culpable, almost guilty. She had shopped and 
laughed and chatted, unknowing, unfeeling! How could 
she not have known? It had been like any other day to 
her—the day Geoffrey died! 

After the shock of great and sudden sorrow, most of 
us experience this feeling which was Lynneth’s, this 
dazed surprise that everything should have been just as 
usual in those last hours before It happened. How 

221 



222 


LOVE AND LIFE 


could we have gone on, doing the usual things in the 
usual way, insensitive to what was coming? 

With no consciousness whatever of foreboding, she 
had laughed, been happy on the day he left her! Left 
her completely. 

For the sense of his spiritual presence she had often 
known while he was on his western trip, was gone. Only 
emptiness remained. And she wanted him, wanted him 
with every drop of her blood, every pulse of her brain, 
every beat of her heart. 

If he could come back to her, just for an hour! If 
she could speak to him once, just once more! His dear 
voice, his strong clasp, his quick glancing smile—she 
craved them all. She wanted him back as he had been, 
her human, flesh and blood Geoffrey. . . . 

And she had only despair, and the agony of loss. 

With bruised and bleeding hands she beat upon the 
unyielding Gates of Death. 

And no ray of light came through. And faith was 
dead, and hope lost in the night that was black around 
her. 

Over her life the fire had passed, leaving it burned and 
charred, useless and desolate as that old house upon the 
mountain-top. 

Yet after the first few days she appeared quite calm, 
perfectly composed and self-possessed. She had no easy 
tears. And she never let any one see her, racked with 
the terrible sobbing that brought no relief. ' 

She was living with Joan in the little apartment on 
Stuyvesant Park, exactly as they had planned—was it 
centuries ago? Joan had come to her at once, and taken 
her there, while Roderick Malvin had gone West, brought 
back Geoffrey’s body, and in consultation with Joan, 
made all the necessary arrangements, sparing Lynneth 
as much as possible. It was from Malvin that she pres¬ 
ently learned how Geoffrey died. 


*STUYVESANT PARK 


223 


With another aviator, John Sanderson, he had made 
a trial flight to test the new motor. A high wind sprang 
up, engine trouble developed, they were driven very far 
out of their course. In trying to make a forced landing, 
they crashed. And when Sanderson, who had escaped 
with a broken arm and a few bruises, succeeded in free¬ 
ing himself from the wreckage, Geoffrey was dead. 

How those first few months passed, Lynneth never 
knew. All else was blurred, blotted out by pain. There 
were only darkness, hopelessness. A frenzy of rebellion. 
And despair. 

It had been easy to have faith, easy to believe in a 
beneficent God, while Geoffrey was alive! Now every 
word of would-be comfort seemed senseless, trivial, an 
uncomprehending mockery. . . . 

His few personal possessions, his books and medals, 
had been given her, and with his letters, were what she 
valued most on earth. They were all she had left. 

While Malvin was West, Calhoun had taken charge 
of Lynneth’s financial affairs, doing what was necessary 
to settle up Geoffrey Tressel’s small estate, and secure 
for her the tiny pension to which she was entitled. Mr. 
Hetherington had suggested to his wife that perhaps it 
would be advisable for him to offer his services, but 
while he talked, Calhoun acted. Lynneth listened to 
what he told her, signed papers, smiled her thanks. To 
do him justice, he had been honestly shocked by the 
tragedy, but her composure soon convinced him that she 
could not have cared a great deal for the dead man. 
Well, she was still very young, and before long would 
forget, and be ready to marry again. What else could 
you expect of a widow still in the twenties? His chance 
would come! But of course such things couldn’t be 
spoken of yet. 

Lucky for him, though, that he had been able to get 
her affairs into his hands before Ashby Lawrence re- 


224 


LOVE AND LIFE 


turned from Italy! It was bad enough to have that man 
Malvin always in the way! Easy to see what he was 
after! 

Roderick Malvin was often to be found in the apart¬ 
ment on Stuyvesant Park, where he was doubly welcome, 
welcome for his own sake, and yet more because he, 
better than any one else, could talk to Lynneth about 
Geoffrey. The need for prompt action following Geof¬ 
frey’s sudden death had propelled him on to a footing 
of intimacy, and he could tell her little things, incidents 
even she did not know. She cherished every tiniest scrap 
of such information, although it made her, in a way, 
jealous of this friend who had known Geoffrey before 
she did! When Ashby Lawrence returned, he too was 
able to add to her store, and of him too she was jealous, 
though he had not seen so much of Geoffrey, not been 
so much his friend. And yet, for the very reason that 
Geoffrey had cared for both these men, she cared for 
them too. 

Her grief was selfish, as all great sorrow is at its be¬ 
ginning. Only as one becomes used to pain does one 
learn to bear it bravely, perhaps to use it as an instru¬ 
ment. With the rallying from shock, the test of char¬ 
acter comes. The test which must be met and under¬ 
gone—alone. 

It was Joan’s need which presently flashed red, flaring 
like a danger signal through the grey mist enshrouding 
Lynneth. 


CHAPTER SECOND 


The autumn had passed. Winter went by, and spring. 
Summer had come again. It was on a breathless day 
in August, one of those exhausting New York days 
when an orange-coloured sun glares through a sticky 
yellow fog, when every footstep shows on the soft and 
smelly asphalt, and the heat beats pitilessly back from 
stone and concrete, that Ashby Lawrence, passing 
through town on his way to Bar Harbor, came into the 
little office behind the shop where Lynneth was busy 
with a sheaf of accounts. For though Joan protested, 
Lynneth had insisted on going back to work. She 
couldn’t live on her income and she had refused, civilly 
but quite decidedly, the assistance offered by Mrs. 
Hetherington. 

She did her work as well as ever, made as few mis¬ 
takes. Her personality seemed divided; there was the 
Lynneth who was calm and efficient, who when you 
spoke to her made answer in a still tone oddly devoid of 
inflections, a machine without, apparently, one trace of 
human feeling; and there was that other Lynneth, who 
sat apart behind the grey veil, watching the activities of 
the first with a kind of dull, incurious wonder. . . . 

“Busy?” Lawrence enquired, casually, but with a re¬ 
solve taken. 

She swung around in her chair and looked up at him, 
the big grey eyes seeming bigger and darker than ever 
in the small pale face, so white above the black frock. 

“I’ve just finished. Will you be in town long?” 

“I’m leaving tonight. Too hot here for me!” He 
glanced over his shoulder, hesitated, then went and 
closed the door before he drew the single cane-bottomed 

225 


226 


LOVE AND LIFE 


chair closer to the desk, and said in a lower tone; “I’ve 
just been talking to Joan. Have you—er—noticed 
Joan?” 

He was appealing to the old Lynneth, the Lynneth 
who was a complete, not a divided personality. But it 
was the insentient machine that replied; “Joan? No. 
What about Joan?” 

He should, during all these months, have become used 
to that still, inflectionless tone. But he hadn’t. It hurt 
him, and he spoke sharply, with a wilful exaggeration; 
“You don’t mean to say you haven’t noticed that she’s 
unhappy—wretchedly unhappy ?” 

“No; I haven’t-” 

Lynneth’s voice had quickened a little. For the first 
time, emotion faintly coloured it. Though her grief had 
for so many months overlaid and obliterated every other 
feeling, she cared very deeply for Joan. Now that af¬ 
fection stirred, slowly fighting its way upward through 
the bitter waters beneath which it had been submerged. 

“She hasn’t been herself for a long time. Didn’t she 
ever tell you where she went last summer, when she 
acted so queerly?” 

Lynneth winced. Last summer-! 

Then she braced herself; “No; never.” 

“I was in hopes she had.” Lawrence was intentionally 
pressing the point. “You’ve always been closer to her 
than any one else! Couldn’t you say something to her ?” 

Lynneth shook her head. She could no more have 
tried to force Joan’s confidence than, once given, she 
could have betrayed it. 

“I’m afraid not. If she doesn’t want to tell me-” 

She left it there, and Lawrence changed the subject. 
He was satisfied that he had got a message through to 
the Lynneth who sat apart, the Lynneth who was not an 
automaton. He had meant to rouse her from her trance 
of sorrow. What he had done was to make preparation 
for the moment when the long disconnected coordination 





STUYVESANT PARK 


227 


between eyes and heart and brain snapped suddenly into 
place at the unexpected sight of Joan’s face, twisted 
with pain. . . . 

Coming home one Saturday afternoon a little earlier 
than usual from one of those short motor runs upon 
which Roderick Malvin often insisted on taking her, 
Lynneth remembered an article she had meant to read. 
Believing her friend still at the publishing house where 
she had had an appointment, she went to look for the 
morning paper in Joan’s sitting room, the door of which 
was partly open. 

In a big easy chair Joan sat, crouching forward, her 
head on her folded arms. She lifted it suddenly. Their 
eyes met. 

Then for the first time since the headlines had shrieked 
to her of Geoffrey’s death, Lynneth broke away from 
her sorrow. It was of Joan and Joan only that she 
thought as she flung herself upon her knees at the other’s 
side, and caught the long, thin hands in both her own. 

“Joan!” she cried. “What’s the matter, dear? Are 
you ill? What’s the matter, Joan?” 

But quick as she had been, Joan’s self-mastery was 
even quicker. She could force a smile to her lips—but 
she couldn’t hide those tell-tale marks on her hands, 
where the nails had been driven into the palms. 

“Why, there’s nothing the matter!” she said. “It’s 
all right, Lynn, dear. Get up.” 

They had never been demonstrative in their affection 
for each other, these two. But now Lynneth bent, and 
kissed the cold hands. Her eyes questioned. And at 
last; 

“There is something wrong, Joan,” she replied firmly. 
“When you went away—last summer—and didn’t tell 
any one-?” 

That last phrase was a godsend to Joan. It showed 
her a way of satisfying Lynneth; speaking the truth, but 
not that truth it would lacerate her pride to confess. 



228 


LOVE AND LIFE 


“Didn’t want to worry you, Lynn. You couldn’t have 
done anything. Afterwards, when it was all over, it 
didn’t seem worth gabbling about. But—oh, well, I was 
ill. Had been ill a long time.” 

“Was that why you went away?” 

Joan nodded. “Went to the hospital at Rochester. 
They operated on me there.” 

“Operated-? Oh, Joan! And you never told me!” 

“What for? Only have worried you. All my life, 

I-” She stopped short. She would not say, “All 

my life I’ve gone through things alone.” That might 
sound like a bid for sympathy! She went on; “I’m all 
right now.” 

“Oh, Joan dear, if I’d only known!” Lynneth’s voice 
shook. This going away to bear what must be borne, 
to bear it in silence and alone was, to use her own phrase, 
so like Joan! It was an instinct she thoroughly under¬ 
stood, whose own tears no one ever saw. Slowly she 
added; “Had it been—often—very bad?” 

“Wasn’t exactly amusing!” 

Dozens of little things, incidents half-forgotten, came 
crowding into Lynneth’s mind. Dominant among them, 
that familiar gesture, the leap of Joan’s hand to hide her 
mouth. But today, since it was all over-? 

“You’re sure you’re all right, Joan?” she remorsefully 

insisted. “When I came in just now-” She regretted 

those last words almost before they were spoken. 

Joan flinched, hesitating an instant. She had so much 
wanted not to lie! “Oh, that was nothing!” she an¬ 
swered hastily. “The—the place where they cut hurts 
sometimes. It’ll stop soon.” 

Then Lynneth knew she had been told only part of 
the truth. No physical pain had ever brought that look 
of tortured rebellion into Joan’s eyes! She remembered 
the revelation made long ago. And she asked no more 
questions. 







STUYVESANT PARK 


229 


But alone in her own room that night, she took her 
one photograph of Geoffrey and set it before her, speak¬ 
ing to it softly, as she had so often done, in pitiful en¬ 
deavour to reach across the void and bring back the con¬ 
sciousness of his living presence. 

“Geoff, dearest,” she whispered, “I’m ashamed of my¬ 
self—dreadfully ashamed! I’ve been a selfish little beast. 
I never was one-half as big and generous as you thought, 
dear heart, but I’m going to be better. I had such a lot 
of happiness!—more than most women ever have. And 
I haven’t thought of anything, but how I missed you and 
wanted you—oh, Geoff dear, can’t you come back to me, 
just for a minute? Only a minute! I can’t bear it, 
Geoff, I can’t, I can't -!” 

The dreadful dry sobbing seemed shaking her to 
pieces. But this time she did not let it have its way. 
She fought it, she thrust it down. And she took the 
photograph, and cradled it against her cheek, and whis¬ 
pered to it. . . . 

And the pictured face that was so terribly alive never 
altered for all her pleading. 

Yet as she stood there alone, whispering over and 
over again; “I won’t be so selfish any more, Geoff dear. 
It’s like disappointing you; even—even cheating you! 
I’ll try—oh, I promise you I’ll try hard to do and be all 
you’d want! I’ll try to be strong and brave and cheer¬ 
ful, and to help Joan. I know }^ou’d want me to do all 
I can for Joan, dear heart! I’m sure you would,” there 
came to her, subtly, faintly, very, very faintly, a shadowy, 
all but imperceptible awareness of Geoffrey. Not as 
with her, not as near to her or conscious of her, but as 
somewhere, somehow, being. . . . 

An instant, a breath, and it was gone. Gone so com¬ 
pletely she came close to doubting whether it had ever 
existed at all. Her very longing for its reality made her 
tell herself it was only imagination, Yet it had left her 



230 


LOVE AND LIFE 


with a feeble, flickering gleam, not of hope precisely, 
but of something to hope for. 

Imaginary or not, it had brought courage. By an 
effort of will, of memory, she might sometime be able 
to recall it. And if she could! If she only could! . . . 


CHAPTER THIRD 


Almost from the first, Lynneth had achieved an ex¬ 
ternal self-control. But the very detachment of per¬ 
sonality which made such control possible, had turned 
it into a frozen rigidity. Then with her response to 
Joan’s need had come a new warm current, breaking up 
the ice. 

Her aching sense of loss was no less poignant, her 
grief no less profound; yet the black despair had light¬ 
ened a little. She accused herself of weakness, scolded 
herself for allowing her pain to possess her so absolutely. 

Geoffrey, her flesh and blood Geoffrey, was gone. But 
he had believed in the survival of personality, after the 
death of the body. . . . 

If only she could feel again, as she had felt during 
her brief moment of awareness, that this belief of his 
was completely, splendidly true! With all the ardent in¬ 
tensity her gentleness concealed, she now set resolutely 
to work to reshape her life. She had one aim in view, 
and one only; to win again to the consciousness of him 
as somewhere, somehow, being. 

She read his books over and over again; they might 
help her to think his thoughts. Every interest that had 
been his, she followed as closely and as far as she could. 
Every idea, every opinion he had expressed, she strove 
to recall. In the courage that had been his she struggled 
to find, and little by little did find, courage for herself. 
All that was in her of power and of force was centred 
on the one effort, the one desire—to divine what Geof¬ 
frey would have wanted her to do, and do it; to divine 
what he would have wanted her to be, and be it; and so, 
through love and an active, encouraged memory love 

231 


232 


LOVE AND LIFE 


would not allow time to atrophy, to spin a thread across 
the Great Abyss. 

In this concentration of effort, month after month 
went by, almost unheeded. And seldom at first, then less 
rarely though never often, came those blessed moments 
of awareness. But not that consciousness of Geoffrey’s 
unseen presence she had known more than once while 
he was alive. Always he seemed far away, infinitely 
beyond her reach. Try as she might to bring him to her, 
he never came. 

But the greater inward strength, the thought of hav¬ 
ing something to work for, were reflected in her physical 
self, and of course misinterpreted by those who saw 
them. Malvin, whom she now regarded very much as 
the big brother she had never had, congratulated himself 
that the motoring he had almost forced upon her had 
done something, if only a very little, to help. Geoff, 
dear old fellow, was the last man to have wanted any 
one to be unhappy forever on his account! He had 
cared for Geoff more than for any of his other friends, 
and he’d have done his best for Geoff’s widow even if 
he hadn’t liked her. Nowhere in the United States did 
he feel so much at home as in the little apartment on 
Stuyvesant Park, with Lynneth Tressel, and—and Miss 
Hilary! 

Danvers Calhoun marked the change with a mixture 
of satisfaction and apprehension. He thought she was 
“getting over” Tressel’s death, as was to be expected. 
Why, the man had been dead more than a year! What 
worried him was a fear that the getting over might 
be the result, less of beneficent time than of the presence 
of Roderick Malvin. Friendship between man and 
woman being something in which he hadn’t a particle of 
faith, her relations with the Englishman made him de¬ 
cidedly uneasy. They also increased her desirability. 
After a while, he decided to try to extract some infor¬ 
mation from Joan Hilary. 


STUYVESANT PARK 


233 


He found her alone one Sunday afternoon, in the 
sitting room fronting on the little park. She shook 
hands cordially. 

“Sit down! Lynneth’s out for a walk, but she’ll be back 
soon, and then we’ll have tea. You’ll wait, won’t you?” 

“Yes, of course. I brought some papers for her. 
Don’t you think she’s been looking better lately? It 
seems to me she’s got more interest in things—and in 
people.” 

“She does seem rather more alive.” 

Joan’s tortoise-shell rimmed eyeglasses tapped the open 
volume of Merrick lying on her knee. She looked from 
Calhoun to the trees in the little park; the brisk Novem¬ 
ber wind was slowly stripping them of their last few 
leaves. The change in Lynneth had begun, she knew, 
that August afternoon when she admitted her own past 
danger. But what if she had told all the truth? 

“Lynneth’s very young, you know,” she said gravely; 
adding; “Couldn’t expect her never to recuperate.” 

“You think, then, that she’ll be ready to—er—to go 
on again, after a while?” Calhoun asked with palpable 
hesitation. 

Joan turned her head. Her hazel eyes questioned him. 

There was no reason why he shouldn’t answer that 
mute, yet definite and even imperious question. He had 
in a manner invited it, deliberately. 

“Yes. I mean marry again,” he said. Instinct, not 
purpose, made him lower his voice. 

“Wouldn’t be exactly an unheard-of thing to do,” 
Joan’s reply was intentionally vague. Her desire, intui¬ 
tive rather than reasoned, was to force him to commit 
himself. 

Calhoun did not want to commit himself. It was a 
thing he intensely disliked doing; he invariably thought 
more of keeping a way of retreat open than of direct 
attack. But he saw that only by such commitment could 
he make Joan his ally. 


234 


LOVE AND LIFE 


“I want her to marry me,” he said with an admirable 
appearance of straightforwardness. “You know that, 
don’t you?” 

Again Joan looked away from him. She, the fearless, 
had become afraid of herself, afraid of her own motives. 
Could she trust them? Might not her longing make 
black seem white, cheat her into doing what would be— 
well, not best for Lynneth? She hesitated, spoke at last 
with a notable absence of her usual brusque decisiveness: 

“I knew you did, at one time.” 

“Did she tell you?” 

Joan’s eyebrows went up. “Certainly not!” she ex¬ 
claimed sharply. “She’s not a bit that sort of person. 
What put such a beast of an idea into your head?” 

He hadn’t thought it a beast of an idea. He had 
thought it a matter of course for a woman to boast of 
the men she had refused. But he very clearly under¬ 
stood that some sort of excuse was in order. 

“I didn’t think of it that way,” he said humbly. “She’s 
awfully fond of you, and of course it would be dif¬ 
ferent-” 

He dropped the sentence. He very greatly preferred 
the endless possibilities of the half-said to the blunt ex¬ 
actness of the fully uttered. 

“You told me yourself,” Joan presently replied, with 
a little outward thrust of the lip. “We all knew. But 
Lynneth’s marriage-” 

He shook his head. “There’s no other woman in the 
world for me,” he averred bromidically. 

At the moment, he honestly believed there wasn’t. 

As he had once presented himself to Ashby Lawrence 
in the role of the patriotic young politician, so now he 
was presenting himself to Joan in that of the model 
lover. But he wondered why she kept staring so in¬ 
tently out of the window? 

Her eyes on the bare brown patch where her favour¬ 
ite hyacinths bloomed in spring, Joan was asking her- 




STUYVESANT PARK 


235 


self what the new, bitter pain was doing to her? She 
ought to be able to bear it better—she wasn’t exactly 
used to happiness! But had she been disinterested, hon¬ 
est with herself during this talk with Calhoun? Or had 
she tried to encourage him, to help him so that he might 
take Lynneth out of the reach of—the other? And if 
he did, what would she gain? Lynneth gone, he, the 
other, might even stop coming to the apartment, since 
he very certainly didn’t come there now to see her, good 
friends though they were, and splendid talks as they had 
had together! She would be left lonely and alone. . . . 

If she had even been quite sure the other man really 
wanted Lynneth! Then her way would have been plain. 
But she was not sure. And Calhoun had loved her so 
long! She must be fair to Calhoun—the argument broke 
down in a wry little smile at her sophistry. She couldn’t 
help being honest, even with herself. 

“I hope,” she said slowly, “I hope you’ll succeed, some 

day. It would be much better for Lynneth if- Here 

she is!” 

A key had clicked in the outer door. 

Beneath the octagonal mesh of her crape-bordered veil, 
the wind had whipped Lynneth’s cheeks to a delicate 
pink. Though still excessively thin, her body had re¬ 
gained something of its old elasticity; in her eyes was 
something of the old, wistfully eager interest. 

The woman who loved her noted these signs of re¬ 
turning vitality, and tried to be only glad. Why should 
Lynneth go solitary all her days, when this Danvers Cal¬ 
houn had cared for her so long? ‘‘Danvers Calhoun!” 
chuckled the little mocking imp in her brain. “Why do 
you say ‘Danvers Calhoun?’ Why not—the other?” 

Lynneth greeted Calhoun, touched Joan’s shoulder af¬ 
fectionately in passing, and remarked as she sat down 
and began to pull off her black gloves; “It’s such a won¬ 
derful day I couldn’t bear to come in.” She paused, 
thinking of the little white cloud which had seemed to 



236 


LOVE AND LIFE 


float before her, high up there in the blue. Geoffrey had 
always called such tiny fleecy clouds “puff-balls.” . . . 
She pulled the gloves into shape and added; “I’m sorry 
I was so long. Have you been waiting tea for me?” 

“Kettle must be boiling by now. I’ll get it.” Joan was 
glad to eliminate herself for a moment. 

“I brought you up the papers of that mortgage, and 
the assignment has gone to be recorded. It’ll take a 
couple of months to get it done,” Calhoun explained in 
his most matter-of-fact tone. 

“Oh, thank you! You’ve been so good and taken so 
much trouble! I don’t know what I’d have done if I 
hadn’t had you to advise me!” Lynneth was sincerely 
grateful. 

“It hasn’t been any trouble. I like doing things for 
you—greatest pleasure I have.” He paused a breath- 
space, then hurried on in the manner of one wishing to 
get away from a too-impulsively admitted truth; “Now 
here’s the bond, and this is the mortgage-” 

He was still enumerating the various papers when 
Joan came in with the tea-pot. 

Lynneth always poured tea. As she gave him his cup 
she said casually; “I met Valerie and her husband, down 
by Washington Square. They’ve bought an apartment, 
she told me, but it isn’t ready yet, so they’re staying with 
her people. She’s looking splendidly; handsomer than 
ever, I thought.” 

“How do you like Larford?” Calhoun asked. 

Lynneth gave a little shrug. “I scarcely know him. 
I’ve only met him once or twice. He seems to be making 
.Valerie very happy.” 

“He’s lucky to have the chance,” Calhoun declared 
earnestly, and was going on to improve the occasion 
when it was spoiled—for him—by the coming of Rod¬ 
erick Malvin. Malvin sat down with the air of one in¬ 
tending to remain, and Calhoun promptly departed. 

With him went the need for making conversation. 



STUYVESANT PARK 


237 


There was a long, contented silence. Then through the 
noises of the street and the quiet of the room, sounded 
the droning hum of an aeroplane, flying towards Long 
Island. 

Lynneth went to the window. Malvin and Joan sat 
watching her. Behind her back the Englishman glanced 
questioningly at Joan. She smiled, and gave the slight¬ 
est of nods. Such unuttered questions and answers had 
passed frequently between them during the months when 
they had feared for Lynneth with a dread they were 
alike unwilling to put into words. 

The plane had disappeared. Lynneth spoke tenta¬ 
tively ; “I wish I could have seen Geoffrey take the air! 
I never did, you know.” 

Malvin understood, and gave her what she wanted. 

“It was wonderful! He and his machine were like 
one living thing. I remember watching him as he came 
back one night—Dunsany has described it better than I 
can. I ran across the passage the other day, and thought 
you might like to see it.” He took a slender, red-bound 
book out of his pocket. “Here it is!” 

An instant the two heads bent over one page. Joan 
was silent, looking on. It seemed to her then that all her 
life had been spent that way—in looking on. 

Lynneth glanced up. “He makes you see it all! I 

feel as if I’d been watching Geoff-” She broke off 

with a sharp little intake of breath. 

“Will you keep the book?” Malvin asked. “Just as 
a kind of ‘au revoir.’ I”—he paused an instant—“I’m 
going home Saturday.” 

“Oh, I’m sorry!” Lynneth exclaimed frankly. “We’ll 
miss you dreadfully, Joan and I. I thought you’d be 
here for months yet! When did you decide to go ?” 

“Yesterday. I- It seemed best.” 

“But you’ll come back?” 

“Some day—I hope.” 




238 LOVE AND LIFE 

Lynneth had other questions to ask. But Joan did not 
open her lips. 

Calhoun had left Stuyvesant Park with his mind so 
full of Lynneth and her concerns that when he reached 
the Armytages—he had assiduously cultivated both Lisa 
and her husband—one of the first things he said was; 
“I’ve just been in to see Mrs. Tressel." 

Lisa removed the excessively long cigarette holder of 
elaborately carved jade from her lips and blew a medita¬ 
tive cloud of smoke into the air before she asked briefly; 
“How's she looking?" 

“Better, I think. Much better. She had a little colour 
in her face for once." 

“Ah 1 Well, when a widow takes to rouge you can be 
quite sure she’s beginning to look about her." Surveying 
Calhoun through slightly narrowed eyes, she sent forth 
another cloud of smoke. She had not forgotten that 
he had once been “rather devoted" to Lynneth. 

“Sure it was rouge?" Armytage put in maliciously. 
He liked to annoy the wife who ruled him. 

They were in the black, Kali-dominated drawing¬ 
room, Calhoun seated in one of the very uncomfortable 
carved chairs, Armytage lazily trying to tease the goblin¬ 
like fish in the aquarium, Lisa stretched indolently among 
the sofa-cushions, swathed in the diaphanous green chif¬ 
fons she affected. Other guests were expected, but they 
were late. 

“After all," Calhoun remarked with careful indiffer¬ 
ence, “after all, Tressel’s been dead over a year." 

His indifference was just a little too careful, but such 
subtleties often escaped Lisa, and they escaped her now. 
She did not want Calhoun herself, but not to want a man 
and to look on complacently while he makes love to an¬ 
other woman, are two entirely separate things. 

“Yes," she replied slowly, “yes, so it is! A good bit 
more than a year. He died at least six months before 
Valerie was married." 


STUYVESANT PARK 


239 


A quicker ear than Calhoun’s would have caught the 
change of tone that sounded in those last three words. 
He missed it altogether. 

“Mrs. Tressel says Mrs. Larford is looking handsomer 
than ever. That marriage has turned out mighty well, 
hasn’t it?” he said. 

Maladroit as it all was, this last remark, apart even 
from its touch of impertinence, was the worst of his 
blunders. But he remained comfortably unaware of his 
mis-step. He did not even see the venomous look in the 
pale narrow eyes. 

“Very well.” There was a file-like edge to Lisa’s me¬ 
tallic voice. “Very well indeed—so far.” 

Calhoun’s surprise was genuine. “So far!” he re¬ 
peated. “Why, what do you mean by ‘so far’ ?” 

Lisa smiled thinly. “What do you suppose I mean?” 

He welcomed the suggestion of possible scandal. 
“You think, then-?” 

“Perhaps! But if I do, I’m going to keep it to myself 
a while. You might ask Phil his ideas on the subject. 
He and Valerie have always been such great friends, you 
know! Why, they’ll even go as far as Riverside Drive 
for a nice, quiet, undisturbed chat!” 

Phil turned quickly. Turned, not on Lisa, but as 
though retreating from her. . . . 

She smiled again. Then, very idly; “Give me another 
cigarette, will you ?” she said. “By the way, I hear Daisy 
Carter’s gone to Re.no. Has any one told you anything 
about it?” 

But she was not thinking of Daisy Carter, any more 
than of the cigarette she was fitting into the green jade 
holder. 

So Valerie was looking handsomer than ever, was she? 
And her marriage had turned out mighty well! Valerie 
was happy. Valerie—was happy! 

It was a slow, secretive smile of anticipation that hov¬ 
ered now on Lisa’s reddened lips. 



CHAPTER FOURTH 


Valerie came hurrying into the little office behind the 
shop. And even if the hour had not been the—for 
Valerie!—utterly preposterous one of ten in the morn¬ 
ing, the look on her face would have justified Lynneth’s 
surprised; “Why, what’s the matter?” 

“It’s Lisa!” cried Valerie in outraged tones. “It’s 
Lisa! And after she’d promised—You told me she’d 
promised!” 

“Do for mercy’s sake try to be a little more definite, 
Valerie!” Lynneth exclaimed. She had been interrupted 
in the midst of an intricate calculation, which would 
have to be done all over again. “What about Lisa?” 

“It’s that damned letter! She may—oh, I don’t know 
what she’s going to do. It’s a perfect shame! Why 
can’t she leave me alone? Here I’ve got everything 
just as I like, and not a single worry in the world, and 
now she’s-” 

“Stop whining, and tell me what’s happened.” 

“I wasn’t whining! You’re so dreadfully unsympa¬ 
thetic, Lynneth! I come to you in my trouble, and tell 
you everything, and instead of appreciating it and doing 
all you can to help me-” 

“You haven’t told me anything yet,” Lynneth again 
interrupted. “What’s the fuss about ? Begin at the be¬ 
ginning and hurry up. I’m busy.” 

Bullying Valerie was, she knew, the only way of bring¬ 
ing her speedily to the point. 

“We went to Ashby Lawrence’s to supper last night, 
after the Horse Show. Andrew’s got a cold—quite a 
horrid cold—and he wanted to stay home. But you 
know how queer Mr. Lawrence is, and of course I 
couldn’t go without him. I wish I had, though! Well, 

240 




STUYVESANT PARK 


241 


we were alone for a minute while we were getting into 
our wraps—I don’t see why she insists on wearing green, 
do you ? It may be awfully artistic, but I think-” 

“Never mind that now. Who were alone, and when?” 

“Lisa and I, of course. Honestly, Lynneth, there are 

times-! Well, she looked me up and down in that 

horrid, slimy sort of way she has, and she said; ‘I’ve 
been thinking things over, and I can’t make up my mind 
whether to sue for divorce, or merely send that letter to 
your husband. With his views, it would be interesting 
to see what he’d do!’ I give you my word you could 
have knocked me over with a feather!” 

“What did you say?” 

“I said; ‘What on earth are you talking about, Lisa?’ 
Then she smiled—she has the hatefulest smile!—and 
told me not to pretend I didn’t know, and she was going 
to see her lawyer tomorrow—that’s today, of course— 
and consult with him.” 

“But she promised!” Lynneth exclaimed. “Didn’t you 
remind her?” 

“I didn’t have time. Andrew called me to hurry. We 
were going on to a dance, and I wasn’t able to say an¬ 
other word. It was awful!” 

Lynneth briefly reflected. “What did Lisa mean when 
she spoke of your husband’s ‘views’?” 

“Oh, Andrew’s a Roman Catholic, you know! He 
doesn’t believe in divorce. We got talking about it at 
supper—so silly of him! I can’t imagine why he didn’t 
hold his tongue. I don’t believe Lisa’d ever have 
thought of doing anything—There’s no reason for her 
wanting to get rid of Phil! She has him right under 
her thumb. He’s only Mrs. Armytage’s husband; that’s 
what they call him at the clubs. No; she just wants to 
spoil things for me. If she should send that letter to 
Andrew-!” 

“Why not go to him and tell him the truth about it 
yourself, straight off? If he believed you-” 






'242 


LOVE AND LIFE 


“Of course he wouldn’t believe me! He’s frightfully 
jealous! He mightn’t divorce me, but he’d think—oh, all 
sorts of dreadful things!” 

“Well, if he doesn’t trust you-” 

“Oh, my dear! No man ever trusts his wife—that 
way. Not if he’s in love with her.” 

Lynneth shook her head. Geoffrey would have taken 
her word in the face of a dozen letters! She was sure 
of that. But she didn’t attribute it to any difference be¬ 
tween herself and Valerie Larford. The comparison 
she made was between Geoffrey and the other man. 

“But if I backed you up?” she asked, absently draw¬ 
ing little lines and circles on the pad before her. 

“He’d think you were lying. Oh, I know men, Lyn¬ 
neth, and you don’t!” 

Lynneth gave a little shrug. She had never accepted 
the popular theory that to know human nature and to 
think badly of it are necessarily one and the same thing. 

“You haven’t been seeing much of Phil Armytage, 
have you?” she asked suddenly. 

Valerie wriggled, and looked uncomfortable. “We-ell ? . 
not so very much. But—oh, you know how it is! Things 
that are really perfectly all right can be made to look 
queer if—if ” 

So that was it! Valerie had been amusing herself. 
Valerie never could resist amusing herself! 

“Yes,” she said quietly, and drew two or three more 
circles, before she added; “The question is, what are you 
going to do?” 

“Oh, / can’t do anything! There’s no use in my try¬ 
ing to talk Lisa over—she hates me too much. It’s you!” 

“But what have I to do with it?” 

“You brought me Lisa’s promise; you made me feel 
safe! It’s up to you to see that I am safe!” 

The consummate impudence of this fairly took Lyn- 
neth’s breath away. It had not occurred to her to re¬ 
member that Valerie had no claim, less than no claim, 




STUYVESANT PARK 


243 


upon her help and sympathy. It had been enough that 
she was in need. But to accuse her of being responsible, 
to demand, not request, her help as a right! 

“Your impertinence, Valerie, is simply stupendous !” 
she remarked coolly. 

Valerie instantly began to sob. “Oh, Lynnie darling, 
I never thought you’d go back on me!” she tearfully 
protested. 

Lynneth’s pencil traced line after line on the paper. 
Her thoughts questioned; “What would you want me to 
do, Geoff, if you were here? Ought I to go? It’ll be a 
horribly unpleasant job, and the chances are I shan’t be 
able to move Lisa one hair’sbreadth. There isn’t any 
good reason why I should be mixed up in this abominable 
business all over again—but Geoff dear, there is a 
chance! And if Lisa does start things, she’ll make that 
poor Mr. Larford miserably unhappy, and Aunt Honoria 
too. Even Aunt Honoria’d have to know there was 
something wrong, then! I suppose I might at least try! 
I believe that’s what you’d want me to do, dear. If 
you were here, you’d tell me to ‘buck up and carry on.’ 
That was what you always did, Geoff! You never 
shirked anything. And I won’t!” 

“Stop crying, Valerie,” she said aloud. “I’ll at least 
try to do something with Lisa. I’ll go and see her this 
afternoon.” 

Valerie’s tears ceased as abruptly as if a tap had been 
turned off. “Couldn’t you go now?” 

“No, I couldn’t! Doesn’t it ever occur to you that 
other people may occasionally have affairs of their own 
to attend to? Joan’s away today, and I’ve dozens of 
things to look after here. I’ll call you up this evening 
and let you know what’s happened.” 

“Oh, all right. We’ll be home. Andrew has an idea 
his cold’s too bad for him to go out. Men do so love to 
coddle themselves! We were going to the theatre, but 
perhaps it’s just as well we’re not, since you’re to keep 


244 


LOVE AND LIFE 


me waiting so long!” concluded Valerie with an ag¬ 
grieved little sniff. 

Nor was she much better pleased that evening, when 
over the telephone she heard the results of Lynneth s 
embassy. For a slight delay was all that had been ob¬ 
tained. Lisa had smilingly reminded Lynneth of the 
wording of her promise. She had promised not to in¬ 
terfere with Valerie’s marriage, and said nothing at all 
of what she might or might not do after Valerie was 
married! Still, since Mr. and Mrs. Larford were dining 
there the following Thursday, she’d agree to wait and 
hear what Valerie had to say. They could have a talk 
when the other guests were gone. And of course she 
might be persuaded to alter her plans. She didn’t say 
she would; she merely said she might. 

“There’s only one thing for it, Valerie,” Lynneth fin¬ 
ished. “Go there, and keep your head up. Don’t let her 
see that you’re afraid of her! Tell her your husband 
won’t believe a word against you. That’s the line I 
took.” 

“You didn’t accomplish much, did you?” complained 

Valerie. “Oh, it’s easy enough for you to talk-! 

I’ll have to go there to dinner, I suppose. But I do think 
if you’d really tried you could have induced her to give 
you the letter! You made me think she’d promised. 
You wrote me-” 

“Read over the note I sent you, and you’ll see-” 

“Goodness gracious, you don’t suppose I kept it, do 
you ? I believe you want to get me into trouble! You’ve 
gone over to Lisa’s side, and that’s why you suggested 
my telling Andrew, when you know perfectly well-” 

Lynneth hung up the receiver. But she wondered. 
Would Lisa and Valerie, all else remaining unaltered, 
have hated each other so vehemently had they been 
daughters of the same mother, as well as of the same 
father? Before she learned her letters, Lisa had learned 
to be jealous of Valerie! 






STUYVESANT PARK 


24 5 


And what was it she had said when reminded of those 
others she would make miserable by carrying out her 
threat against Valerie? 

“Andrew Larford’s nothing to me,” she had replied 
coolly. “And your Aunt Honoria isn’t my mother, 
though they taught me to call her that before I was old 
enough to know better. As for father—well, he brought 
it on himself!” 

“I wish I knew if there was anything I could do!” 
Lynneth murmured under her breath. It wasn’t easy 
to remain inactive! But perhaps this was one of those 
times when, as Geoff used to say, you only made bad 
worse by trying to help. “You’ve got to leave something 
to Providence—occasionally!” he had laughed. 

Oh, that dear gay laugh of his. . . . 

What would happen at the coming dinner? She had 
small expectation of any relenting on Valerie’s part, re¬ 
membering her expression, the tone in which she had 
said; “Since my very dear half-sister and her admirable 
husband are to dine here Thursday night, perhaps I’d 
best not do anything before Friday. It might interfere 
with my table arrangements if they didn’t come!” 

The important Thursday arrived, and proved to be 
one of those days when the weather seems intent on 
demonstrating how very disagreeable it can be if it 
chooses. It rained, sleeted, hailed and snowed, freezing 
and thawing alternately, while a high east wind, rushing 
around corners and hurling itself against buildings with 
shrieks of delight, did its detestable best to make every 
one miserable. Joan and Lynneth fought their way 
home from the shop over streets as slippery as glass. 
No taxis were to be had, and they were thoroughly 
chilled and all but exhausted before they reached the 
apartment. As night closed in the storm increased. 
Lynneth wondered whether Valerie would try to use 
the weather as an excuse for staying home? Not that it 
would make much difference! Only by defying Lisa 


246 


LOVE AND LIFE 


could Valerie hope to thwart her. But Valerie had not 
courage enough for defiance. 

Suddenly she turned to the telephone. She would try 
again to make Valerie see what was her best, perhaps 
her only chance. 

Valerie spoke fretfully. “Have I done anything? 
Well, I called Lisa up and told her Andrew had a fright¬ 
ful cold, and oughtn’t to go out on such a night. It’s 
the truth, too!” 

“What did she say?” 

“Say? She said she’d advise me to come—it wouldn’t 
be good for me to stay away, whatever it might be for 
Andrew. But the tone she said it in!” 

“She threatened-?” 

“That was what it amounted to. You know that hor¬ 
rid snaky way she has? Well, any idiot could have told 
what she meant by it’s not being good for me to stay 
away!” 

“But if your husband’s really ill? It’s an awful 
night!” 

“Oh, it’s just a cough. And Lisa-” 

“You must stand up to her, Valerie, you must. Re¬ 
member what I told you! But I do honestly believe it 
would be ever so much better for you to tell everything 
to your husband. If he heard it all from you-” 

“Oh, it’s very easy for you to talk! If you were in 

my place- Hush! There’s Andrew calling me. 

Good-by!” 

Lynneth put back the receiver with a shrug and a 
sigh. She had done her best. But what would the next 
day bring? 

It brought no message from Valerie. Nor did any 
come the following day, or the day after that. Lynneth 
again dismissed the matter from her mind. If things 
had gone wrong, she would have heard fast enough! 
And she had plenty to think about. The shop was pros¬ 
pering, and Joan’s satisfaction over the autumn sales 






STUYVESANT PARK 


247 


brought Lynneth the first faint little gleam of something 
almost like happiness she had known since Geoffrey’s 
death. And instead of trying to extinguish it as a kind 
of treachery, she cherished and encouraged it. 

For she was learning to bear her burden. It was no 
less heavy; only better adjusted. She could not stoop 
through life. She must manage somehow to stand erect, 
however crushing the weight laid upon her. 

The first amazed cry, “Was ever sorrow like unto my 
sorrow?” which breaks from the lips of the bereaved, 
had ceased to echo in her thoughts. Other women had 
endured what she was enduring—and worse. For she 
had her memories, perfect and unspoiled. 

Were they not enough? Using them as a foundation, 
she was doing her utmost to rebuild her life, taking her 
place, not automatically but consciously, among those 
who may be called upon for service. No dramatic op¬ 
portunities, no invitations to splendid sacrifice, broke the 
monotony of her quiet routine. It was a day by day ef¬ 
fort to do well in little things—such very little things, 
they sometimes seemed! 

Yet she had continually to fight for the courage to go 
on, fight to make herself appear interested in what hap¬ 
pened around her. If she could not be happy, she would 
at least seem cheerful! Wouldn’t Geoffrey regard any¬ 
thing else as mere cowardly shirking of the duty lying 
upon every one—the duty of refraining from adding to 
the world’s woe by any exhibition of personal sorrows, 
the duty of apparent cheerfulness? 

If only she had had a child! Geoffrey’s child, that 
would look at her with his eyes, and smile at her as he 
used to do. Flesh and blood of his, that she could hold 
close to her heart when the ache of craving was almost 
beyond endurance! 

She had Joan, and her memories. If her time of joy 
were short, there had been nothing to mar it while it 
lasted. And nothing and no one could mar it now. 


248 


LOVE AND LIFE 


But Joan was unhappy. Joan too was hiding pain. 

And if Joan were taken from her-! That possibility 

she hardly dared face. She could only go on from day 
to day. Who could tell what might or might not happen ? 

And yet, when something did happen, it was a some¬ 
thing she had never thought of. Early one morning, 
while she was pinning on her veil and Joan, whose way 
it was to clap her hat on her head and jerk it into place, 
lingered over her second cup of coffee, the telephone 
rang. 

“Oh, hang that fool operator!” exclaimed Joan dis¬ 
gustedly. “She called us three times yesterday, when she 
wanted Audubon!” 

“Ell go.” Lynneth tucked in an invisible hairpin, and 
picked up the receiver. “Hello!” 

It was Mrs. Hetherington’s voice which sounded in 
her ear. At first she failed to recognize it. For those 
usually placid tones were placid no longer, but shook 
so that it was difficult to make out the words: 

“I want to speak to Mrs. Tressel- Oh! Lynneth, 

is it you? Do come down as soon as you can! We’re in 
dreadful trouble!” 

Lynneth caught her lower lip between her teeth. So 

Lisa- But what was this that Mrs. Hetherington was 

saying ? 

“Oh, Lynneth, Andrew’s dead, and Valerie—I’m afraid 
Valerie’s lost her mind! She says the most awful 
things-! Oh, do please come as quickly as you can!” 






CHAPTER FIFTH 


Hurrying into her coat, Lynneth briefly explained 
what had happened. Joan expressed a fervent wish 
that the entire Hetherington family would emigrate to 
Patagonia forthwith, but admitted that since they were 
still in Washington Square, to Washington Square 
Lynneth must go. 

She found the entire establishment in a state of de¬ 
corously suppressed commotion. Even Wilbur’s pro¬ 
fessional impassivity was cracking here and there, let¬ 
ting glimmers of excitement and of furtive knowledge 
slide through. That terrible knowledge of the house¬ 
hold servant! There wasn’t a maid or a butler on the 
North Side of Washington Square, nor an acquaintance 
of one of them, who didn’t know all the history of the 
feud between the two daughters of Mr. Blazius Bleecker 
Hetherington, sixth of the name. And they would 
soon know every word and phrase of those hysterical 
outbursts which had made poor Mrs. Hetherington de¬ 
clare she believed Valerie had lost her mind. 

Lynneth slowly ascended the once familiar stairs. 
When last she trod them, Geoffrey was alive. . . . The 
house remained, unaltered and undisturbed, but Geof¬ 
frey was gone, and now Valerie’s husband too was gone, 
and the routine of life went on just the same, unaffected 
by their passing. . . . 

“Dear Aunt Honoria, I’m so sorry!” 

Mrs. Blazius Bleecker Hetherington held up a wet 
cheek to Lynneth’s kiss. Lying upon her sofa, she 
seemed to have grown suddenly old. Her serenity had 
changed to a distressful bewilderment. She was hurt, 
perplexed, indignantly surprised at her hurt and her 

249 


250 


LOVE AND LIFE 


perplexity. It didn’t seem reasonable that such things 
should happen to her! 

“My dear, it’s too terrible!” she exclaimed, clutching 
Lynneth’s black-gloved hands as she had probably never 
clutched any one’s hands before. “I don’t know what 
to do—I really don’t!” 

“Can I help?” 

“I don’t know.” There was pathos in the repetition 
of that phrase, falling from those lips. “I don’t know! 
I thought perhaps you could tell me—that’s why I sent 
for you. He was ill only three days—pneumonia. It 

was a dreadful shock, of course, and Valerie-! Oh, 

my dear, I don’t know what to do with Valerie!” 

“Has she broken down so completely?” Lynneth, 
seated now on the edge of the sofa, realized the relief 
it was to Mrs. Hetherington to talk about her trouble. 

“You can’t imagine how terribly she feels! I’ve 
never seen anything like it!” All Mrs. Hetherington’s 
thoughts were of the child who was a part of herself. 
She had none for Lynneth’s own widowhood. “It’s 
dreadful—dreadful! I can’t bear to hear her.” 

“She must have been very fond of him.” 

“Oh, my dear, they were the most devoted 

couple-! And now you know the poor child blames 

Lisa. Of course it wasn’t Lisa’s fault poor Andrew had 
such a dreadful cough, or that the weather was so bad 
the night of her dinner—though I do think when Val¬ 
erie telephoned her, she ought not to have insisted on 
their coming!” 

And Lynneth understood. Understood more than 
the mother even suspected. 

“That must make it still worse for Valerie, to feel it 
might so easily have been avoided.” Lynneth spoke 
gently, but her thoughts were very far away. 

“I can’t tell you-. She cries and cries—you’d 

scarcely recognize her! Her eyes are so red and swol¬ 
len, and she’s as white as a sheet.” 





STUYVESANT PARK 


251 


“Poor Valerie!” 

“It does seem so dreadful that such an awful thing 
should happen to her! We’ve always done everything 
to make her happy. Her father and I want to take her 
away as soon as we can, and try to distract her mind. 
If only she hadn’t been quite so much in love with poor 
Andrew!” 

Mrs. Hetherington sighed deeply. But Lynneth had 
caught the note of grievance, and understood what a 
relief it would be to Valerie’s mother when the conven¬ 
tional period of mourning was over, and “poor Andrew” 
might with decency be forgotten. 

“What was it you wanted me to do?” she asked after 
a moment. 

“Well, I did want you to see if you could do anything 
with Valerie, but since I telephoned you she’s fallen 
asleep, and of course that’s the very best thing for her. 
Would you mind taking the car and going up to Madame 
Berthe’s? She’s sent me down half a dozen mourning 
hats, and I don’t like any of them. See if you can’t 
find three or four to suit me—you know my tastes. I 
suppose I ought to wear crape for a month or two. 
Then you might select a black fox set for Valerie, and 
if you’ll just remind Madame to cut the necks of all 
her gowns square? A square sets off her throat so 
much better than a V!” 

Lynneth assented. And a couple of hours had passed 
when, the furs and hats secured, she returned to the 
house on Washington Square. 

“You’re such a comfort, my dear!” sighed Mrs. Heth¬ 
erington. She had been indulging in an unobtrusive 
nap, and felt much better. “You’re so strong, and have 
such wonderful self-control! You’re like your uncle in 
that. Now my nerves are all upset, and even Lisa-” 

“Is Lisa here ?” Lynneth demanded quickly. 

“Yes. She and Phil came just a little while before 
you got back. I told them to go straight to Valerie. 



252 


LOVE AND LIFE 


She and Lisa have always been so fond of each other, 
and I know she looks on Phil as a real brother. I 
thought seeing Lisa might dispel some of her illusions. 
Besides, Parkins was in the room, and you know how 
servants-” 

Across the hall and through the closed door came 
sharp and sudden the sound of Valerie’s voice, high- 
pitched, hysterical. . . . 

“Perhaps you’d better join them,” Mrs. Hetherington 
suggested nervously. “Valerie’s quite beside herself. 
Something—something might happen!” Then as Valer¬ 
ie’s voice rose again, clamorous in the hush of the great 
house; “Oh, please go, Lynneth!” she implored. 

Lynneth went. 

Once, and once again she knocked. But there was no 
answer to her knocking. Lisa was speaking now, so 
low she could not catch the words; that was Valerie’s 
voice, shrill in a half-strangled, wordless cry of anger! 
Something of Mrs. Hetherington’s tacitly admitted fear 
rose within her. She put her hand to the knob, opened 
the door, and closed it behind her. 

So the four who had stood together in this same room 
on the day that made Lisa a bride, stood there together 
now, on this day that had made Valerie a widow. In 
great surges of recollection, it all swept back to Lynneth. 
Ghostly echoes of laughter, of dancing feet, of the slash¬ 
ing tune the band had played: 

“My jazz girl, my razzle-dazzle jazz girl-” 

The absurd words rang in her brain now, as they had 
rung in her brain then, when gay voices resounded 
through the house now enfolded in a thick, decorous 
silence. 

There in the middle of the room Valerie stood— a 
Valerie Lynneth had never seen before. Her eyes were 
red and swollen, her cheeks mottled with spots of feverish 




STUYVESANT PARK 


253 


colour. For the moment, her beauty was utterly lost. 
Even her magnificent hair, half-loosened from its coils 
and slipping in a disordered, tangled mass about her 
neck, looked somehow—devastated. On her bare throat 
a red mark flamed, where she had clutched it cruelly. 
The delicate laces of her neglige hung in soiled shreds. 
Her nervous fingers twisted the fragments. ... No 
wonder Mrs. Hetherington had thought her out of her 
mind! In this complete physical abandonment there 
was something brutal, something—shameless. 

Had Lisa expected it? Was that why she had 
brought Phil here? 

Valerie stood between Lisa and the door. Lisa made 
no attempt to change her position. But was it entirely 
to the liquid powder enamelling her face that her pale¬ 
ness was due ? Who could say! Henna-dyed hair, 
plucked eyebrows, blue-black shadows painted upon the 
under eyelids, glaring scarlet of the mouth, were all of 
a cultivated artificiality which in its meticulous precision 
of detail made Lynneth think, quite irrelevantly, of Jap¬ 
anese lacquer. Standing with her back to the light, the 
over-shadowing brim of her hat obscured the greedy eyes 
which had more than once betrayed her. And the febrile 
fingers that had so ruthlessly crushed her bridal roses 
were hidden now within a sable muff. 

Lynneth went forward quickly, and paused midway 
between the two women, but a little apart and to one side. 
As on that other day, Phil had retreated into a corner, 
horrified and ignored. Even Lisa had no attention to 
give him. In this room which had witnessed generations 
of cultivated repressions and inhibitions, elemental forces 
were at work. These two daughters of one father, whose 
hatred had grown with their growth, confronted each 
other now in the culminating hour of their long antago¬ 
nism. 

As Lynneth came forward, Lisa turned towards her. 
But still Lynneth could not see her eyes. 


254 


LOVE AND LIFE 


Suddenly Valerie spoke, jerkily, incoherently, in a 
high shrill voice amazingly different from her normal 
tones; “Lisa, you killed him! You— killed him! He’d 
be alive today—I had to come to you that night! I 

didn’t dare- He was ill then. If he’d stayed 

home-! You killed him! You— killed him!” 

Lisa shrugged her shoulders. “You’re hysterical, Val¬ 
erie,” she said coolly. “/ didn’t make you come to me! 
It was what you’d done yourself. Put the blame where 
it belongs; on your own shoulders, and Phil’s.” 

She did not so much as glance at her husband. 

Lynneth shivered. But the words had no effect on 
Valerie. Perhaps she did not even hear them. 

“You killed him!” she cried again in that shrill un¬ 
natural voice, which was like no human sound Lynneth 

had ever heard. “He’d be alive, if you-. You killed 

him! And now you’ve come to see how I endure—I 
wish you were dead! Oh, I wish you were dead! You’re 
bad—bad—rotten—damn you! God damn you! You 
killed him!” Insanely she kept babbling the awful ac¬ 
cusation. “You killed him, you—you devil! You— 
murdered him!” 

Lisa shrank a little then, shrank for the first time. 
Furtively her tongue crept out to moisten her painted 
lips. Otherwise she did not move. It may be she feared 
any attempt to leave the room might bring those writh¬ 
ing hands leaping to her throat. . . . 

“I—I think I’d better be going,” Phil Armytage mum¬ 
bled, almost inaudibly. “I—I have an engagement-” 

“Stay where you are,” Lisa commanded. 

Another torrent of words broke, babbling and incoher¬ 
ent, from Valerie’s twisting lips. And under cover of 
her outcry, Phil slipped away. No one of the three 
noticed his going. After all, he was merely a counter in 
the long contest. It was with each other the half-sisters 
had to reckon, at each other that they stared during the 
sudden silence, a silence into which terror seemed to flow 






STUYVESANT PARK 


255 


as water flows into a lake when the sluice gates are 
opened. . . . 

Then once more Lynneth intervened. 

“Valerie,” she said quietly. Her steady tone claimed, 
dominated. “Valerie!” 

With a kind of snarl, Valerie turned on her. And 
Lynneth saw frenzy in her eyes. 

Her flesh was cold—clammily cold. But she did not 
flinch, nor hesitate. Geoffrey would not have flinched, 
nor hesitated! Horror was here. Greater horror must 
not come. And come it would, unless she held it off. 
There was no one else. 

Again she spoke, very quietly; “Valerie.” 

“You—you told me to go!” screamed Valerie in the 
shrill voice which was like the voice of one possessed. 
“You told me to go! Why, you—you planned it all! 
You were jealous of me because I was so happy—so 
happy!” A strangling sob broke in her throat. “So 
happy! Ah-h!” 

She flung out her arms with a gurgling cry that rose 
almost to a shriek. And as the long floating draperies 
hanging loose from her shoulders fell away with the 
sudden movement, Lynneth saw what she prayed Valerie 
might have forgotten; the little Italian dagger, the wed¬ 
ding present Ashby Lawrence had promised Valerie long 
ago. Andrew Larford had probably used it as a paper 
knife. And there it lay on the little table, within easy 
reach of Valerie’s clenched right hand. . . . 

Grief and hatred and despair had made her irrespon¬ 
sible as any maniac. Lynneth knew that, knew what the 
tiny sharp knife could do. Another moment, and it might 
be too late, too late for any hope of control. Then- 

She would not think of what might happen then. 

“7 was happy once, Valerie,” she said. 

Her brain worked swiftly, surely. If she could make 
Valerie feel that they were comrades, fellow-sufferers, 
she might avert what threatened. And she must, she 



256 


LOVE AND LIFE 


must avert it! It could not be allowed to happen. And 
there was no one else. Oh, if Geoffrey- 

“You!” Valerie laughed. And the blood chilled and 
stiffened around Lynneth’s heart. “You! You don’t 
matter. It’s Lisa. I’ve got to make her suffer. Don’t 
you understand ? I’ve got to make her suffer—somehow. 

God—God wants me to hurt her. He hates her too- 

He must hate her! She’s never been hurt—never. 
Never. She’s bad—all bad. She killed him, I tell you! 
She—killed him!” 

Again Lisa shrugged her shoulders, ostentatious in her 
bravado. “You’re all worn out, Valerie. You don’t 
know what you’re saying. I’ll see you again when you’re 
quieter. Besides, I only came to give you this. It’s of 
no further use to me!” 

She held out the letter. An instant, and she let it 
drop, disdainfully. 

Valerie’s eyes slowly dilated as she stared, stared, 
stared at the letter lying on the floor. Its possession 
would once have meant so much! And now meant— 
nothing. 

With a quick movement of the head, Lynneth motioned 
Lisa to the door. 

A dreadful choking cry seemed to tear itself out of 
Valerie’s throat. The blood rushed to her head. Dizzily 
she fell back a step, her hand fumbling in search of sup¬ 
port. 

The groping fingers touched the knife. Touched, and 
grasped it. An awful joy lit up the ravaged face. . . . 

A phrase, absurdly commonplace, leaped to Lynneth’s 
lips. “Your mother wants you, Lisa!” she exclaimed. 
“Go to her—oh, for God’s sake, go!” 

Then Valerie sprang. And even as Lynneth cried out 
her warning, her command, to Lisa, she caught the up¬ 
lifted arm. . . . 

A chair fell over with a crash. 

Valerie was by far the taller and heavier, th( ore 




STUYVESANT PARK 


257 


muscular. She tore at the small hands that had fastened 
tenaciously upon her wrist. In an instant she would 
break their hold. And then- 

“Go, Lisa!” Lynneth panted. Her heart was pounding. 
She tried to twist Valerie’s wrist, to make her drop the 
knife. But she did not try to call for help. Her heart 
cried; “Geoffrey!” Her lips only muttered: “Go, Lisa!” 

And Lisa obeyed, knowing herself a coward, shamed, 
contemptible. And as the door closed upon her she 
heard Valerie snarl once, gutturally, unhumanly. Heard 
a cry of pain from Lynneth. . . . 

But she did not turn back, nor try to find out what 
had happened. She was afraid. She could not think 
of what might have happened, here in this decorous, 
well-ordered house. She shuddered away from it, be¬ 
wildered, incredulous. It couldn’t be! Such things be¬ 
longed in the slums, not here on the North Side of Wash¬ 
ington Square, not in the lives of people like Valerie and 
herself! 

But there in the room from which she had fled, Val¬ 
erie lay face downwards on the sofa, weeping wildly. 
Yet the shock had all but cured her hysteria. She real¬ 
ized what she had meant to do, had so narrowly escaped 
doing. . . . 

For Lynneth, her nerves shivering so that she could 
scarcely hold her handkerchief, was wiping the blood 
from a tiny cut on her shoulder. It was only a scratch. 
But if that sharp little knife had not slipped-! 




CHAPTER SIXTH 


One of those blank periods during which nothing in 
particular seems to happen, came now to Lynneth. Pier 
shoulder had healed rapidly. Joan knew of her hurt, 
but Lynneth had told her it was due to an accident she 
didn’t want to talk about. And Joan, thrusting out her 
lip in her customary little grimace, asked no questions. 

Month succeeded month, and Lynneth, busy outwardly 
with her workaday routine, was inwardly absorbed by 
her longing for Geoffrey, her habit of referring all 
things to his judgment, sometimes instantly sure, some¬ 
times obliged to think and puzzle and finally surmise as 
to what the verdict would be. This inward life of hers 
was rooted in memories; and because these memories 
drew to themselves, as by right of kinship, all that was 
high and fine and beautiful, it grew steadily in strength 
and loveliness. And it was, too, exercised and developed 
by her unceasing efforts to win through and past the 
occasional flashes of awareness of Geoffrey as some¬ 
where, somehow, being, to that full consciousness of his 
presence which might be hers could she attain to it. 

He had gone far beyond her. But if he was at all, 
his love remained, striving perhaps, as hers did, to build 
a bridge across the gulf. And sometimes in that quiet 
hour of the night when she sat with his picture before 
her—“talking to Geoff” she called it in her thoughts— 
there came moments of peace, a lightening of pain, which 
helped to make ultimately endurable those other hours 
when the realization that in this world at least she would 
never see him again, never speak to him again, twisted 
her heart. . . . 

Immediately after Andrew Larford’s funeral Mr. 

258 


STUYVESANT PARK 


259 


and Mrs. Hetherington had gone South, taking Valerie 
with them. Of Lisa, Lynneth saw nothing, and heard 
only indirectly, when Danvers Calhoun, on one of his 
frequent Sunday afternoon visits, told of some excep¬ 
tionally bizarre entertainment given by Mrs. Armytage. 
Ashby Lawrence was another who incidentally brought 
news of Lisa. 

He was watching Lynneth with keenest interest. His 
liking for the slip of a girl with enquiring grey eyes had 
become a strong friendship for the woman into whom 
she had developed. When he heard of her marriage to 
Geoffrey Tressel, it had been with a hope at which he 
himself was half inclined to laugh. Hidden deep in his 
sceptical soul he held a tenuous belief in the reality of 
that ideal love of which poets sing. He had looked—and 
ridiculed his looking—to the young pair to justify it. 
But for such justification time was needed; and had not 
been granted. 

Lawrence’s own cynicism mocked his hope, insisting 
with sophisticated superiority that the idyl which had 
begun on the mountain would have ended in the valley, 
subsiding into the mutual toleration which is the final 
resting place of so many marriages. It would finish, in¬ 
stead, in forgetfulness, now that death had intervened. 
Was Danvers Calhoun, he wondered, to write the closing 
chapter? Or would it, by a refinement of irony, bear 
the name of Geoffrey’s friend, Roderick Malvin? Either 
would equally imply revocation, jeering at his shame¬ 
faced wish to believe. Absurd of him, even to think of 
anything else! We forget, and are ourselves forgotten. 

Thanksgiving was gone; Christmas too, and the New 
Year. Winter was passing. February’s snow and ice 
and bitter cold gave way to the ill-tempered capricious¬ 
ness of March, alternately freezing and thawing. April 
winds sent dust-clouds swirling through the streets, ash- 
coloured or golden, according to the momentary humour 
of the whimsical sunshine. 


260 


LOVE AND LIFE 


The business of the shop went on as usual. Calhoun’s 
status was unchanged. Roderick Malvin wrote occa¬ 
sionally to Lynneth, more frequently to Joan. And it 
was perhaps because so little else seemed altered that the 
change in Joan impressed Lynneth. Never had she 
known the older woman so moody. If a kind of half¬ 
fearful expectancy grew more and more evident with 
every passing week, it often yielded suddenly to a sar¬ 
donic air of anticipating the worst as a matter of course. 
But Joan said nothing, and Lynneth bottled up her ef¬ 
fervescing curiosity. 

It was May when this outwardly uneventful period 
abruptly closed with Mrs. Hetherington’s unlooked-for 
appearance at the bookshop. 

She swept in, seeming to preempt the entire place, and 
embraced Lynneth warmly. 

“My dear child! How glad I am to see you again! 
You must come to lunch with me. Now, don’t think of 
refusing! I’ve something to tell you.” 

Serene as ever, she beamed with a full and placid sat¬ 
isfaction. Lynneth smiled back at her. 

“It’s good news, evidently.” 

“Oh, delightful! Do come, my dear.” 

“I really oughtn’t to go. The spring season’s still on, 
and we’re up to our eyes in work.” Lynneth spoke 
doubtfully. But she was slipping into her loose black 
coat. 

“I see you haven’t begun to lighten your mourning yet. 
Don’t you think you should? Even the most conven¬ 
tional people don’t wear it as long as they used to! Now 
I should think a soft lavender, just shading a little 
towards pink—not much, of course, but just a little— 
would be charmingly becoming to you,” suggested Mrs. 
Hetherington, with a touch of something almost like 
eagerness that faintly surprised Lynneth. Pausing at 
the door of the waiting limousine; “The St. Regis, 
Thomas,” she directed the waiting footman. 


STUYVESANT PARK 


261 


The great car rolled smoothly around the corner and 
into Fifth Avenue. Some trick of memory swung Lyn- 
neth back through the years to the impressionable girl 
who had thrilled over her first restaurant luncheon. . . . 

“I don’t think grey would suit you at all, but a really 
good lavender would be just right, my dear.” 

“I wouldn’t feel comfortable in anything but black.” 
Why was Aunt Honoria so oddly insistent? 

“Oh, but my dear, you’re so young! It’s not right for 
you to waste your youth—the best part of your life. 
And you know people aren’t half as strict about such 
things now as they used to be. A great many don’t 
believe in mourning at all!” 

“Isn’t that something we must all decide for our¬ 
selves ?” 

Lynneth’s tone, gentle though it was, put the subject 
definitely out of court. Mrs. Hetherington glanced at 
her, opened her lips, took another glance, and closed 
them. The car stopped in front of the hotel. 

“I hope you’re feeling as well as you look?” Lynneth 
remarked when they were seated at the very desirable 
little table by the window. 

“Oh, my dear- Just a minute. You’ll have clam 

bouillon, won’t you? And chicken livers en brochette? 
Do you like them? Or would you prefer sweetbreads 
with mushrooms?” 

For a few moments Mrs. Hetherington’s attention was 
absorbed; then, as the waiter left them, she turned again 
to Lynneth. 

“I wonder if you can't guess why I’m so pleased?” she 
suggested, beaming at her placidly across the little table. 
“I’ll give you a hint. Blazius likes it too, almost as much 
as I do!” 

Her rather ponderous and quite unusual playfulness 
inferred only one thing to Lynneth. It was six months 
or more since she had seen Lisa, there in the house on 
Washington Square . . . her nerves tautened at the 



£62 


LOVE AND LIFE 


memory. But none of the evoked recollections betrayed 
itself in face or tone as she asked, with due regard for 
Mrs. Hetherington’s Victorian prejudices; “Is it about 
Lisa? Is she going to transform you into a grand¬ 
mother?” 

“Lisa? Oh no, my dear! It has nothing to do with 
Lisa, nothing at all. It’s about Valerie.” 

Lynneth shook her head. “Then I’m afraid I can’t 
guess.” 

Mrs. Hetherington paused to sip her Appolinaris. 
“When I’ve told you all about it, I’m sure you’ll think 
as we do, that it’s the very best thing that could have 
happened! I hoped it would, eventually. Valeric’s too 
young and too lovely to remain a widow.” 

“You don’t mean that Valerie-?” 

“Yes. Valerie’s engaged!” 

“Valerie!” 

“She’s going to marry Maurice Estervvood. His 
mother was a Miss van Sturtevant, a distant connection 
of my own. He came to Miami on his yacht, the Sea- 
Lady. Valerie wasn’t going anywhere, of course, but 
you know she’s always been devoted to yachting. That 
was how it happened. They’re thoroughly congenial, and 
it’s all most satisfactory in every way.” 

“I’m very much surprised.” It was all ‘most satis¬ 
factory !’ And not a year had passed since she had heard 
Valerie’s passionate cry; “You killed him! You—killed 
him!” 

“Yes, of course.” A breath of haste ruffled, like the 
tiniest of ripples, the bland surface of Mrs. Hethering¬ 
ton’s placidity. “Yes, of course. I knew you would be. 
It’s true it isn’t very long-. But we’re not announc¬ 

ing it yet. We’re only telling a few intimate friends. 
You can speak to Joan if you want to, but please ask 
her not to say anything. They won’t be married for 
several months; not until the year is out. Maurice is 




STUYVESANT PARK 


263 


quite prepared to wait. I want you to meet him, my 
dear. I’m sure you’ll like him very much.” 

“I haven’t seen Valerie since just after Mr. Larford’s 
death. She seemed terribly distressed.” 

“Oh, my dear, what a dreadful day that was! You 
were such a comfort to me! I’ll never forget how sweet 
you were. Won’t you take a few more peas?” 

“Thanks, I have some. They’re delicious.” 

“Yes, aren’t they?—Well, but about Valerie. She was 
quite heartbroken. I don’t believe any woman ever suf¬ 
fered more! When we first went away she was terribly 
depressed; we had to coax and coax her before she’d 
go anywhere or do anything. But that makes it seem 
all the better, doesn’t it, that she should have found some 
one to comfort her and take poor Andrew’s place! Oh, 
my dear, what would we do if Time didn’t heal our 
wounds and teach us to forget?” Mrs. Hetherington 
sighed gently. “And as I said, they won’t be married 
until the full year is over. Valerie’s determined to show 
every respect to poor Andrew’s memory. We’re going 
to Paris this summer for her trousseau.” 

“Is she very happy ?” Lynneth asked. 

“Oh yes, indeed! Very happy. Just between our¬ 
selves, my dear, I think Maurice is much better suited 
to her than poor Andrew ever was. I’m sure he’d be 
glad, though, if he knew. He loved her very dearly, 
and so, of course, he’d want her to be happy.” 

“If he knew!” echoed Lynneth’s thoughts. “// he 
knew!” But aloud she only gave an inarticulate little 
murmur, which Mrs. Hetherington was at liberty to in¬ 
terpret as she pleased. Both were silent while the 
waiter brought the meringue glacee. 

“But what about you, Lynneth?” Mrs. Hetherington 
presently enquired. “I hear Danvers Calhoun is still as 
devoted as ever, but that there’s another man on the 
horizon.” 


264 


LOVE AND LIFE 


Lynneth stiffened. “People talk—nonsense. Mr. Cal¬ 
houn is my very good friend. That’s all.” 

Mrs. Hetherington smiled incredulously. “And the 
other man? Sir—what’s his name?—Rupert Morven?” 

“If you mean Sir Roderick Malvin, that’s just as 
absurd as the other.” She paused an instant. “I’m 
Geoffrey Tressel’s wife, Aunt Honoria.” 

Mrs. Hetherington smiled again, confident in her 
superior wisdom. This dainty little dark-haired niece 
of hers, with the small determined face and steady grey 
eyes—why, she wasn’t much more than a child, after 
all! 

“Oh, my dear,” she said comfortably, “you may talk 
that way now, but wait a few years! You’re young; 
you’ll forget your loss, and be happy again. Why, you’ve 
most of your life still before you! It wouldn’t be right 
for you to—to nurse your grief too long. One owes the 
dead respect, of course. But that’s no reason why you 
should practice suttee.” 

The word pleased Mrs. Hetherington. She quite 
preened herself over her cleverness. 

Lynneth was silent. Whatever she said, must sound 
like an arraignment of Valerie. And she didn’t want to 
arraign Valerie, or any one else. 

But Mrs. Hetherington had been tacitly defending 
Valerie with every word she uttered, and as Lynneth re¬ 
entered the bookshop a little later, she wondered whether 
it wasn’t merely an attempt to bolster up that tacit de¬ 
fence which had made Aunt Honoria suggest—well, 
absurdities ? The idea that she might some day re-marry 
had never entered her mind. It simply hadn’t occurred 
to her. But now she began uncomfortably to wonder 
whether it had occurred to other people? To Joan? To 
Danvers Calhoun? To Geoffrey’s friend, Roderick Mal- 
vin? She had liked him, welcomed him. Surely he 
couldn’t have mistaken her liking and her welcome? 
Such an end to their friendship- 



STUYVESANT PARK 


265 


She opened the door. Malvin himself confronted her, 
coming across the little shop. 

She stared at him, speechless for a moment. She had 
supposed him very far away. And she wished he was! 

“Did I startle you?” 

Her quick ear caught the change in his tone. He was 
excited—quite tremendously excited—about something. 

“I didn’t think you were anywhere in this part of the 
world!” she exclaimed as they shook hands. How cold 
his fingers were! 

He laughed. Again that note of excitement! 

“I decided to come over rather suddenly. I—there 
was something I wanted to do. I shan’t stay long.” 

“But we’ll see you-?” 

“Well, rather!” He seemed to find something acutely 
humorous in the suggestion. 

He was looking at her, but as she suddenly perceived 
with profound relief, he scarcely saw her. She was 
there, and he was perfunctorily aware of her presence, 
but something else absorbed him. 

He left almost immediately, and other affairs demanded 
Lynneth’s attention. She had no opportunity of speak¬ 
ing privately to Joan until that evening, when they were 
together as usual in the latter’s sitting room. Lynneth 
had her own, but it was smaller, and comparatively little 
used. 

Joan, coming in, had switched off all but a single 
light. “You’ll read your eyes out of your head one of 
these days, Lynn! Let’s talk.” 

Lynneth willingly closed her book. “What do you 
suppose brought Aunt Honoria to the shop today?” 

Lounging in her favourite big chair, her face in the 
shadow, Joan hunched one thin shoulder. 

“Give it up. Never was any good at guessing riddles! 
What was it ?” she asked lazily. 

“Valerie’s going to be married!” 

“Llasn’t wasted much time, has she?” Joan’s lip went 



LOVE AND LIFE 


26o 

out in her habitual little grimace. “Well, she’s got a 
right to do as she pleases! She’s a widow, if she hasn’t 
been one long.” 

“Why should that make any difference? It isn’t as if 
she’d been divorced!” 

“Don’t quite get you. D’you mean, you’d think it all 
right for her to re-marry if she was a divorcee, but 
rather balk at her doing it since she’s only a widow? 
That the idea?” 

Lynneth nodded. “I can’t see the smallest objection 
to a second marriage after a divorce. Isn’t the divorce 
itself an acknowledgment that the marriage wasn’t— 
wasn’t the real thing? But when two people have been 
happy together, then a second marriage—I don’t see how 
it’s possible! Oh, I know they talk about doing it for 
companionship, and it’s being different from the first, and 
all that, but twist it as you choose, it’s a good deal like 
adultery!” 

“Not exactly the conventional point of view! Even 
the churches that won’t re-marry divorced people never 
turn a hair if a widow-” 

“But don’t you see how that implies a denial of the 
immortality they profess to believe in, or else the putting 
of marriage on a purely material and physical basis ?” 

“Um-m! Well, perhaps. But life’s a thing of flux 
and change. People don’t stay put emotionally any more 
than they do physically. When old ties are broken, they 
form new ones—same as Valerie’s doing.” 

“I don’t know how she can!” Lynneth exclaimed. “She 
seemed broken-hearted when her husband died. Valerie 
was—why, almost raving! And now Aunt Honoria talks 
about how nice it is that she’s found some one to take 
‘poor Andrew’s place!’ Her husband’s place!” 

Would Geoffrey have thought that horrid, or just weak, 
and rather pitiful? What a half-comic, half-ironic con¬ 
clusion to the drama which had once verged so very 
near to tragedy! 



STUYVESANT PARK 


267 


“ ‘These violent griefs have violent ends/ ” para¬ 
phrased Joan coolly. Then in another, lower tone she 
said slowly with a curious, curbed intensity; “Don’t let’s 
talk about that any more now, Lynn. I—there’s some¬ 
thing I want to say to you.” 

“Good news, or bad?” 

“Depends on the point of view. Sort of mixed, I sup¬ 
pose.” 

“So long as you’re not ill again-” 

“Goodness, no! Never was better in my life.” 

“Then nothing else matters—much.” 

“Oh, Lynn-!” Joan paused, bit her lip, and made 

a fresh start. “You—when you got back today, you had 
a few minutes’ talk with Roderick Malvin?” 

“Only a minute. I meant to ask you about him. He 
seemed terrifically excited over something. Did he say 
anything to you?” 

“He didn’t tell you why he came back?” 

“No, not a word. He only-” Suddenly she sat up 

straight. “Joan, what’s happened?” she demanded 
breathlessly. 

In the darkness she heard Joan give a little gasp, as 
if abruptly plunged into ice-cold water. Then swift and 
sharp came the reply, almost flung at her. And who but 
Joan would have made such a statement in such a way? 

“We’re going to be married!” 

For the second time that day, surprise made Lynneth 
speechless. Geoff’s friend—and Joan! “You—and Rod 
Malvin?” she exclaimed—and the next instant was out 
of her chair and hugging Joan hard. “Oh, my dear, 
my dear, how splendid! How perfectly splendid! He’s 
a real man, every blessed inch of him! You’ll be glori¬ 
ously happy together—I’m sure you will! Oh, Joan, 
my darling old Joan, I am so glad!” 

The two women held each other fast. . . . 

But at last Joan said, very low; “It means leaving you, 
Lynn. He has to rejoin his regiment in India next 





268 


LOVE AND LIFE 


/ 

month. He wants me to go with him. It’s only ten 
days.” 

All the strength seemed to ooze out of Lynneth’s knees. 
She felt suddenly weak and nerveless. With all her 
generous heart she had rejoiced in Joan’s late-coming 
happiness, with never a thought of what that happiness 
would mean to her. Now her quick visualizing imagi¬ 
nation spread it all before her, the emptiness, the lone¬ 
liness. . . . 

Geoff wouldn’t have been so selfish! He’d only have 
been glad!- 

Swiftly she rallied her courage, resolutely she turned 
her back on the dreariness. Time enough to face all 
that, when Joan was gone! Not even the shadow of a 
shadow should dim Joan’s present joy, could she pre¬ 
vent it. 

“Of course you couldn’t expect a mere man to think 
of such a trifle as a trousseau!” she exclaimed gayly. 
“All the same, we’ll get you properly fitted out, if we 
have to sit up nights doing it! You won’t be able to 
have anything except ready-mades, but I intend you to 
be a credit to your country! Why, it’s the most wonder¬ 
ful romance! And India-! Oh, Joan, do you sup¬ 

pose they’ll let you ride an elephant? I’ve always wanted 
to ride an elephant!” 

Something of strain, something even of feverishness, 
was in her gayety; yet these did not lessen its sincerity. 
Joan felt, and saw, and understood. And when she 
smiled, her lips quivered a little, though she was so 
happy. 

“Don’t know about the elephant,” she replied shakily. 
“We haven’t had time to talk much about—about that 
part of it. Not yet.” 

“It was only today, then? You hadn’t known before?” 

Joan shook her head. “No. I—I’ve cared a long 

while, Lynn. But it didn’t seem possible that he -” 

She could not go on. But the old harshness, the old 





STUYVESANT PARK 


269 


brusqueness were gone from the voice that had lingered 
over the pronoun. 

“He came back for that, then? To ask you-?” 

“Yes. We’ve been writing to each other, you know, 
and—I’m very proud, Lynn! But—oh, Lynn”—her 
hands closed tightly on her friend’s—“I thought it was 
—must be—you he cared about and came to see! I tried 
hard not to be jealous, but there were times when I— 
when I almost hated you, Lynn! I knew you only liked 
him, and it seemed as if I couldn’t bear-” 

Lynneth put both arms around Joan then, and kissed 
her. “I ’ve had my share,” she said softly. “All of it! 
And now you’re going to have yours. Oh, I’m glad, so 
glad for you, Joan!” 




CHAPTER SEVENTH 


Even for so simple a wedding as Joan’s would be, a 
good deal of preparation was required, apart from the 
purchasing of the many necessaries for the long journey. 
And there was, too, more than a little business that must 
be settled. Joan insisted upon retaining her interest in 
the bookshop. Its management would be entirely in 
Lynneth’s hands now, Madge Ayres having suddenly 
decided to accept the invitation of a rich and childless 
friend who had lately lost her husband, and go to live 
with her in California. Of them all, Lynneth only 
would be left. Left alone. 

Busy as she was during that hurried time, there were 
nerve-twisting moments when she sharply realized the 
solitude that would be her portion through all the days 
and nights to come. Empty, silent rooms. No intimate 
talk; no one to consult with; no one to care if she were 
ill or over-tired. The little things of everyday compan¬ 
ionship, a glance, a welcoming smile, the click of a home¬ 
coming key turning in the lock, all the trifles which 
mean so much more to us than we ever know until we 
have lost them, would be taken from her. 

This home which she and Joan had made together 
would be a home no longer. Would be hers no longer, 
since she had refused the gift of the lease Joan had tried 
to force upon her. Yet it was here that the first con¬ 
sciousness of Geoffrey as being had come to her, here 
that she had struggled to rebuild her life, to make it not 
unworthy of the love he had given her. . . . 

In the autumn she must leave it all, and move to 
smaller, cheaper quarters. 

Through these long months, Joan’s friendship had been 

270 


STUYVESANT PARK 


271 


like a wall at her back. That defence removed, she 
must rely absolutely upon herself, and her own strength 
—if strength she could find! 

The last evening came. And came, it seemed to her, 
before she had time even to take breath. It wasn’t pos¬ 
sible that on the very next morning Joan was to be 
married and sail for England with her husband! 

It was the last time the two friends would be together, 
here where they had so often discussed matters large and 
small, or sat in peaceful, quiet companionship. They 
had so much to say to each other, so short a while in 
which to say it! Yet both were silent. For the moment 
when last words must be spoken is invariably the one 
in which it is most difficult to find words to speak. 

Joan crouched on the window-seat, long hands clasp¬ 
ing her drawn-up knees. Spring had been late that year, 
and there was still a feathery lightness to the green 
misting the trees. Overhead a crescent moon hung low, 
clear cut against the violet-blue of the star-strewn sky. 

Without shifting her position, Joan spoke suddenly; 
“Lynn, I’m bothered about you. I do hate leaving you 
all by yourself!” 

“I’m not exactly rejoicing over the prospect!” Lyn- 
neth’s smile was somewhat wry. “I’m going to miss you 
dreadfully, Joan!” 

“Life’s just one absurdity after another! Of course, 
I’ll admit I never liked being alone and having to scratch 
up a living; still, I could do with it. But as for you— 
you’re such an atrociously domestic sort of female!” 
Pulling one knee higher, she added abruptly; “What are 
you going to do with yourself in the future, Lynn?” 

“I don’t quite know. I’ve had the best.” 

“Yes. And the best can’t be had more than once. No 
use denying that! But you’re so young! There may 
easily be forty or fifty years ahead of you. And you 
can’t live on memories forever. Not even if the mem¬ 
ories stayed fresh and vivid. They won’t. Time will 


272 


LOVE AND LIFE 


fade them and cover them over after a while, and then 
—what will you do then?” 

Lynneth had no answer ready. She could not put into 
words her unceasing struggle to reach Geoffrey, nor her 
occasional awareness of him as somewhere, somehow 
being. Words were too concrete, too tangible. By mak¬ 
ing fixed and definitive they would falsify what was es¬ 
sentially fluctuating and elusive. 

Joan hesitated a moment. In order to argue as she felt 
she ought to argue, she must suppress her sympathies 
and emotions, making cold logic, the matter-of-fact, 
dominate absolutely. It wasn’t easy. But she was deeply 
anxious about Lynneth; and that anxiety drove her on, 
drove her further, perhaps, than she had meant to go. 

“Don’t you think,” she asked with much of her old 
abruptness, “don’t you think that perhaps some day— 
not now, but some day—you might decide to take the 
second best, the half loaf, and make it do? There’s 
a lot of nourishment in half loaves, sometimes!” 

“What exactly do you mean, Joan?” 

“I mean that you were born to be the head of a house¬ 
hold, not the head of a business. I mean that you’ve 
got to patch your life up somehow. I mean—Danvers 
Calhoun.” 

“Joan! You don’t-” 

“Wait a minute! Let me finish. I’ve been thinking 
over what you said the other day about second marriages. 
Lynn, I believe you’ve left out a good deal. If you had 
children, it would be different. Then I wouldn’t say a 
word. But—you’ve always wanted them. They’d make 

up to you for any quantity- Give you something to 

live for.” 

Lynneth bit her lip. Only that afternoon she had seen 
a little girl skipping along beside her mother, an adorable 
little chubby-cheeked and bright-eyed morsel of humanity, 
who smiled at her shyly, and then with sudden courage 




STUYVESANT PARK 


273 


waved an absurdly small mitten-. The baby hand 

seemed to be squeezing the blood from her heart. 

A child of her own! Her child—and Geoffrey’s! 

“-Or if you had some one very near to you, some 

one for whom you cared tremendously/’ Joan was say- 
ing. “But you haven’t. And you can’t centre your life 
about what’s past, dear. The very nature of things 
won’t let you.” 

“It isn’t past. It never will be. It is, now and always.” 

Joan shook her head. It was difficult for her, since 
she was arguing with herself as well as with Lynneth, 
trying to make her brain and her practical experience 
convince her instincts and her heart—and failing utterly. 

“That feeling of yours won’t last. Just can’t last. 
You’ll develop and change—you won’t be able to help 
yourself. Fifteen or twenty years from now you won’t 
be the girl who married Geoffrey Tressel; you’ll have 
become an entirely different person. I’m not saying you 
ought to marry Danvers Calhoun now, or in the future 
either, for that matter. There’ll be others. It’s your 
mental attitude I’m talking about. You’re keeping tight 
hold of what’s past, you won’t let yourself forget. You’re 
fighting to retain your memories, and building on them, 

and making them count supremely- Oh, my dear, 

my dear, I don’t mean you haven’t been brave and cheer¬ 
ful and hidden your sorrow! Indeed I don’t!” 

“I have tried, Joan, honestly I have! I hate people 
who go around with long faces, and depress everybody 
who comes near them. But forgetting—that’s differ¬ 
ent.” 

“You haven’t been a bit lugubrious. No one who 

didn’t know you as well as I do would have guessed- 

But this is a world of compromises and the second best, 
Lynn! Recognition of that is proof you’ve grown up, 
shed your illusions, got used to looking squarely at things 
as they are. Oh, I know well enough I oughtn’t to talk 
about making the second best do! Not now, when I have 






274 


LOVE AND LIFE 


—everything! There was a long time before, though, 
when I—when I’d have compromised gladly, Lynn!’’ 

“I don’t believe it,” insisted Lynneth through bitten 
lips. “I can’t believe it! You’re wrong, quite wrong. 
Compromise in some things, yes; but in this—it’s hor¬ 
rible ! To forget Geoffrey, put another man in his place 
—it wouldn’t be possible!” 

“That’s morbid, Lynn. The dead must give way to 
the living. For a while you’re crushed. But you can’t 
stay crushed, even if you want to. You’ve got to get 
up, and patch up, and go on. You’ve only one life to 
live, and it’s your business to live it to the full, and not 
try to turn your back on half of it. Do you want to 
dry up, and grow narrow, and self-centred, and vision¬ 
ary? You’ve got to live in a normal, healthy way, with 
a normal, healthy point of view, if you’re going to amount 
to anything worth while. You know just as well as I 
do that it’s only the exceptional woman who can live by 
herself and for herself without getting small and incon¬ 
siderate and egotistical. It’s a mighty difficult thing, 
and a mighty dreary thing, to live out your life alone, 
Lynn! Don’t turn your back on everything because you 
can’t have just what you want!” 

Lynneth’s hands were clasped together so tightly the 
knuckles showed white. Joan had put her one great fear 
into words. 

“I know,” she said slowly, “I know! That’s why so 
many solitary women make idiots of themselves over dogs 
and cats, I suppose. We all want to come first with 
somebody or something, be loved best by something that’s 
alive and can show how much it cares for us. I want 

that too, and-” She broke off. She had come first 

with Joan, once! With a little catch of her breath, she 
went on; “But if—if Geoff had gone on a long journey, 
you wouldn’t urge me to forget him while he was away.” 

“If he’d gone on a long journey, there’d be a chance 
of his coming back to you. But, dear, as it is-” 




STUYVESANT PARK 


275 


“As it is, I’m his wife, now and always! Oh, if people 
really, truly believed the soul lives on when the body 
dies, they’d look on every second marriage as a confes¬ 
sion of failure, an admission that the first was only a 
makeshift, or else that the survivor wasn’t strong enough, 
didn’t care enough to be loyal! Life”—she held her 
head well up now, and there was a white radiance on her 
face—“life isn’t so terribly long, after all! It may be 
hard, and lonely, but when you’ve memories and love to 
help you-” 

Slowly, and with a secret effort, Joan shook her head. 

“That’s what people always say, and think too, at first. 
It seems as if you could never smile again, never care 
for any one or anything again, but—you do. Look at 
the women—good women, fine women!—who’ve lost 
husbands they loved, and after a while found contentment 
with some other man, who’s made a place of his own, 
a place for himself in their lives. I know you couldn’t 
do that yet. I’m only trying to warn you. You’re hyp¬ 
notizing yourself. You’re building on a foundation that’s 
bound to decay, sooner or later, and crumble to pieces. 
You’re wilfully shutting yourself out from the normal 
woman’s life, the life you’re best fitted for, trying to live 
in a world of your own, where memory and spirit are 
enough. They’re not enough! You’re trying to deny 
Time, and Nature, and all the experience of generations. 
Time will beat you in the end, Lynn!” 

Lynneth shrank and shivered. This insistence that 
forgetting could not be prevented, that Time was an 
ally of Death against whose inexorable power she was 
helpless, was like a weight of stone she must throw off, 
or be slowly, pitilessly crushed to death. 

“I know,”—the words were dull and toneless—“I know 
most people would say you were right. And yet—and 
yet-” 

Joan had left the window-seat. She came now and 
put her arm about Lynneth. 




276 


LOVE AND LIFE 


“I feel like a brute, Lynn! I hate to hurt you so— 
but, oh, my dear, we’re living on the earth, not up among 
the clouds! Facts are facts, Lynn, and death is death, 
and stronger than any of us. Humanity’s a thing of 
flesh and blood; it can’t live on spiritual food only. Don’t 
starve yourself while you strain after an impossible ideal 
of loyalty! Change is the law. And some day—you’ll 
change.” 

Then at last Lynneth turned on her. 

“If Roderick Malvin were to die, do you think you 
could forget him, and be contented with some one else?” 

Joan winced. “No, I couldn’t!” she replied honestly. 
Then tried to hedge, to ameliorate the too frank answer; 
“But, Lynn, I’m fifteen years older than you are. And 
while I may believe I couldn’t, perhaps—well, perhaps 
I’m just like other people! Time-” 

“Then Time’s cruel!” 

“Kind and cruel, both. It seems horrible to forget! 
But we do—we must. Partly, anyhow. It’s the law; 
the world couldn’t go on otherwise. You can’t buck 
against Nature, Lynn. No use trying. And it isn’t right, 
it isn’t natural to make the very pivot of your life your 
memory of a man who is dead!” 



CHAPTER EIGHTH 


“You’re trying to deny Time and Nature and all the 
experience of generations. Time will beat you in the 
end r 

Now when it was all over, when the ceremony had 
been performed and the ship sailed away, conveying 
Joan and her husband on the first stage of their long 
journey, those words of hers beat in Lynneth’s pulses. 

It was late afternoon. Twilight dimmed the familiar 
rooms, so instinct with Joan’s personality, it seemed as 
if you might at any moment turn to find her lounging 
lazily in her big easy chair. . . . 

With an effort determined and deliberate, Lynneth 
looked about, looked from one familiar object to another, 
weighing, testing the bitter measure of her loneliness. 
The rapid ticking of the little clock on the tall bookcase 
stressed the stillness. 

Emptiness. Silence. Solitude. Day after day, week 
after week, month after month. . . . 

Then out of the shadowy corners, out of the silence 
and the solitude, crept the lurking, whispering fear; 

What if she really were self-hypnotized? What if 
those moments of awareness of Geoffrey as being were 
but an illusion, the result of her longing, of the will to 
believe acting on the subconscious, of her pain-quickened 
imagination? What if Time and Death should defeat 
her in the end, dulling and then obliterating her memo¬ 
ries, draining love away little by little, as water seeps 
into sand ? 

Was the world right? Was forgetfulness the everlast¬ 
ing law, and her determination to remember, to keep the 

277 


278 


LOVE AND LIFE 


dead a living force in her life, only morbid fancy, born 
of grief and a sick and lonely heart ? 

A qualm of shuddering repugnance shot through her 
as she remembered how Danvers Calhoun, coming out of 
church that morning, had caught and pressed her hand, 
whispering hurriedly; “When am I to see you again? 
I’ve so much to say to you—Lynneth!” 

Tone and manner left no room for doubt as to what 
it was he wanted to say! And Ashby Lawrence, stand¬ 
ing nearby, had looked at them both with quizzical irony 
in his glance, but not one touch of surprise. 

Aunt Honoria, Danvers Calhoun, Ashby Lawrence, 
Joan—each and every one of them took it more or less 
as a matter of course that the passing of the years would 
insure forgetfulness. Against the massed opinion of her 
little world she stood alone. 

And against the belief of the larger world around and 
about it as well. Even the churches, however much they 
might disagree in ceremony or creed, were unanimous in 
declaring that death broke the marriage tie. 

“Until death us do part.” 

She had said that; but she had never believed it. Nor 
had he. Had she been taken and he left, would he have 
forgotten? Would he have sorrowed and remembered 
for a little while, only to let her, at the last, slip help¬ 
lessly out of his life? Would he even have said that 
acceptance of a lesser love could not “change the love 
still kept for Her”? 

Every instinct within her cried out an indignant “No!” 

And yet—and yet—who was she to stand against the 
massed verdict? To deny the authority of experience 
garnered through generations? 

Was her very loyalty, then, a delusion, her strength 
weakness and folly, her struggle to reach across tfce void 
mere inability to face the truth? 

Emptiness. Silence. Solitude. Day after day, week 
after week, month after month. . . . 


STUYVESANT PARK 


279 


Her head drooped. All her courage seemed to be 
slipping away from her- 

She could not, would not let it go! Somehow, she 
must find an answer, definitely, once and for all, the 
answer on which her present and her future both 
depended! With a resolute, physical effort, she 
forced her head up. And it seemed to her as if in that 
brief interval the falling darkness had lifted a little, 
giving a vision as of wide spaces seen from a far-off 
hilltop. 

It should be done there! There on the mountain-side 
above West Hillsdale, where she and Geoffrey had been 
together. There, if anywhere, she could reach to him; 
there, if anywhere, she would know! 

This was Saturday. Tomorrow she was free. And 
a train left that night. By hurrying, she could get to 
the station in time. . . . 



CHAPTER NINTH 


The spring sun shone with faint and fragile warmth 
upon the road which wound like a thick white cord up 
the mountain. The air was full of the delicious fra¬ 
grance of young growing things. The clustering tree- 
tops in the wooded valley below were of brighter, softer 
greens than those Lynneth remembered, making the pines 
beyond seem darker than ever. The road, winding up¬ 
ward, was a summons to adventure. . . . 

Every inch of the way had its associations for Lynneth. 
And though she walked rapidly at first, her pace grew 
slower and slower as each tree and bush and boulder 
found and struck its own note in the exquisite harmony 
of her remembrances. Here was the once-muddy hollow, 
and the stone from which she had jumped; here the brave 
little brook, tinkling cheerily over brown stones, beneath 
ferns and dipping branches. Just beyond, stood the 
wasp-infested shack on whose doorstep she had sat that 
first radiant day. Not an inch of the way but was 
familiar—yet not an inch that was not subtly changed. 

For spring’s renewal held sway now, not summer’s 
maturity. 

On and on; up and up. Past the pool where the trout 
leaped, past the bench where they two had so often read 
or talked together. And at every turn and bend of the 
winding road it seemed as if Geoffrey must be waiting 
for her just beyond, smiling, beckoning her forward. 

On and on; up and up. Alone now, where they had 
once walked together. The white birches gleamed nymph¬ 
like among the trees. The brook rippled softly, the birds 
chirped and sang. But Geoffrey’s voice was hushed for¬ 
ever. . . . 

280 


STUYVESANT PARK 


281 


Yet if every onward step brought new pain, it brought 
too a kind of solace. For they were all happy associa¬ 
tions which went with her along the road. Youth tri¬ 
umphant, gallant and strong and debonair, instinct with 
the brave and joyous spirit of the springtime—youth was 
abidingly his. Sorrow could not touch him, nor sick¬ 
ness, nor old age, nor pain. He was safe from sadness 
and from disappointment—but oh, how he must have 
loved this roadside as it was now, when the buds were 
breaking into blossom and the wind was filled with the 
sweet odours of the young and teeming earth! 

On the fence beside the grove of silver birches where 
they had rested together once, she rested alone now, her 
black dress sombre against the brilliance of the living 
green. Far down below, the sloping fields were white 
with daisies. Beyond, the well-remembered road grew 
rougher, more stony. It was the path she had trodden 
but once, the path leading to the house on the summit 
of the mountain. 

And as she sat motionless in the silence and the soli¬ 
tude, mind and heart drenched with memories, there 
came to her a strange certainty that something, some¬ 
thing she could experience but never express, was wait¬ 
ing for her, there where the storm had raged on her day 
of days. What its nature might be, whether of joy or 
comfort or dismay, she could not divine. But the cer¬ 
tainty of it as waiting for her had been increasing, she 
was now aware, with her every forward step. She had 
chosen the mountain-top as the place where she would 
determine, once for all, the inner, spiritual life she was 
to lead. Now it was drawing her, drawing her to itself, 
that it might tell her—something! A strain of awe 
mingled with the growing excitement that put every nerve 
and every sense on the alert as she again began to climb. 

On and on; up and up. Geoffrey, Geoffrey, beat every 
pulse in her body, every throb of her heart. Geoffrey, 
Geoffrey! The trees rustled his name, the birds sang it, 


282 


LOVE AND LIFE 


the sunshine bore it on every golden ray. Geoffrey, 
Geoffrey! 

A twist in the road. And suddenly the ruined house 
confronted her as it had confronted her once before, 
the same, yet different—how amazingly different! For 
some wild clambering vine had grown over it, weaving 
a veil of young green leaves that all but hid the destruc¬ 
tion and the charred blackness. Swallows were building 
their nests in the crumbling chimneys; about the broken 
doorstep clustered gay groups of dandelions and of but¬ 
tercups. 

With a sharp catch in her breath, Lynneth turned 
appealingly to the lightning-struck tree. 

The bolt had cleft it like a giant sword, clear and 
clean. But it was not all dead. A part of it was putting 
forth fresh shoots. And over much of the rest, a wild 
grape vine was rapidly spreading its broad leaves. 

Slowly, slowly, Lynneth looked from ruined tree to 
ruined house. And over them both was the young fresh 
splendour of the living green, the promise and the beauty 
of life renewed. And over them both, the spring sun¬ 
shine poured its generous flood of liquid gold. 

She drew a long, deep breath. There was a message, 
a message of vital importance for her here, if only she 
could read it! Thoughtfully she moved away, up the 
slope to the place among the rocks where they had leaned 
and talked together—that day. 

She seated herself upon one of the stones, looking down 
at the undulating slopes, all white and gold now with 
daisies and dandelions, that stretched below, far below 
to where the cities were, to where her life, the present, 
physical life that must somehow be lived out to the end, 
lay awaiting her. And in the silence which was no silence 
at all, so interwoven was it with the stir and hum of 
those new lives the spring had called into being, she 
faced the questions, the doubts, that made her sick, and 
cold with fear. . . . 


STUYVESANT PARK 


283 


She had built her house of life upon her love for 
Geoffrey, never doubting but that she was building it on 
a rock no storms could shake. And now those she knew 
best and trusted most united to assure her that love 
was no rock, but unstable sand the winds of Time must 
inevitably scatter and sweep away. They asserted, and 
the massed opinion of the world echoed their assertion, 
that she was both wrong and foolish to foster memory. 
They declared that she was injuring herself, destroying 
her best possibilities, by centring all her thoughts and 
hopes and aspirations about the dead. 

Were they, could they be right? Was she in truth 
wasting her life, self-hypnotized, self-deluded? Reso¬ 
lutely she faced that doubt, fearful to her beyond all 
telling. Not one hideous feature of it did she shut her 
eyes to, not one aspect of it did she flinch from regarding 
squarely. 

With all her strength, she wanted to be the woman 
Geoffrey had thought her, to fulfil, as far as might be, 
all the possibilities he had seen, or imagined he saw in 
her. He had chosen her. As best she could, she must 
justify his choice. To stunt herself and her own nature 
would be, in a way, to injure and belittle him. 

Was, then, her very holding to the past, her effort, 
not to forget but to cherish and develop every tiniest 
atom of memory, a kind of subtle disloyalty? 

Must the old love, the old life, die, that new love, new 
life, might be born? Was this the message of the spring¬ 
time and the mountain-top? 

Yet what could that new life be, either other or more 
than compromise ? The black ugliness of lightning-struck 
tree and fire-swept house were graciously concealed by 
the fresh new growths—but the tree at least had once 
stood straight and strong and beautiful, with no need 
for such concealment! 

Love could not last, they told her. The stored experi¬ 
ence of the ages proclaimed that death severed all hu- 


284 


LOVE AND LIFE 


man companionships, that Time brought healing, brought 
unavoidable, inevitable oblivion. And yet —he had not 
thought so! 

“The love that isn’t stronger than death, that can’t hold 
through and beyond death, may be very sweet, but it isn’t 
—magnificent!” 

As if spoken close beside her, those often-recalled 
words of Geoffrey’s rang now in her ears. They stirred 
her heart like the cry of trumpets. And on one great 
wave of acceptance her whole being rushed to answer 
them. . . . 

She did not know, she could not possibly know until 
the very end whether her love was great enough, 
whether she herself were capable of that magnificent love 
which is great enough to defy the allies Death and Time, 
proving itself the stronger. So far as she was concerned, 
it might be that those others spoke truth when they de¬ 
clared Time the sure and implacable conqueror. But it 
might also be that they were wrong. 

And upon that chance, that might-be, she would stake 
and risk all she had. There lay her great adventure! 

All her life, that life upon this homely earth which is 
the only one whose verity we mortals can absolutely 
prove, staked upon this chance, this great adventure to 
which the trumpet-call of Geoffrey’s remembered words 
had summoned her! No stunting of growth, but a de¬ 
velopment rooted in what had been—there for her was 
the message of the springtime and the mountain-top. 

Change, compromise, were only for that which had 
been spoiled and blasted. 

She did not know, she could not know; but upon the 
chance she would risk her all. Why should she expect, 
or even ask for complete knowledge? If she knew, 
knew with proved and mathematical certainty that her 
memories would never fade, her love never waver nor 
grow dim, but remain until the end what it was now, 


STUYVESANT PARK 


285 


then—why then there would be no risk, no great ad¬ 
venture, but only a waiting, resigned, quiescent. . . . 

Instinctively she had risen and stood erect, head up, 
lips parted, eyes shining, cheeks aglow. What mattered 
it if there in that world stretching far below to which 
she must presently return, her outer life were poor and 
solitary and grey and very dreary ? With love and mem¬ 
ory held fast in her heart, with the daring and the con¬ 
sciousness of her great adventure thrilling through her 
veins, would she not have enough and more than enough, 
full measure and the brimming cup? 

Geoffrey, Geoffrey! 

Youth and strength, heart and soul and brain, all she 
had, all she was, all she could ever be—where were these 
looted, if not in the love Death could not take from 
her, the love Time could not, should not destroy? 

Defy Time and Nature? 

Yes! And yes again, a thousand times! Geoffrey 
was hers, and she was his, forever and unchangeably! 
The death-built wall rose high between them, forbidding 
sight and sound and touch. But even without these, 
love could still exist! 

On that faith she would build her future, the life she 
must live when she went down from the mountain-top, 
back into the valley. 

Little and slim and black-garbed she stood with head 
held high, alone, proudly confident in the power of love 
to endure. And from somewhere, far down in a thicket, 
a bird began to sing. 

Not suddenly, imperceptibly almost yet still swiftly, 
the tide of excitement which had been steadily rising 
within her swept to flood-heights. Nerves vibrated, 
pulses raced; unconsciously, she held her breath. . . . 

And as she stood there, erect and valiant, ready to risk 
and to dare, ready to defy the forces before which so 
many bow, there came to her like dawning light, faintly 


286 


LOVE AND LIFE 


at first, then stronger, clearer, radiant at last, that ting¬ 
ling consciousness of Geoffrey’s presence she had so often 
felt during his life-time. 

She did not see anything, she did not hear anything. 
Yet she knew that he was with her now, with her in a 
communion closer even than the all but perfect compan¬ 
ionship which had been theirs of old. Her eyes could 
not see him; her outstretched hands could not touch him; 
but her spirit thrilled, responding to his. And all uncon¬ 
sciously she spoke his name, aloud, yet softly, as to one 
who was very near: 

“Geoffrey l” 

Never would she be able to put this knowledge of hers 
into phrases, to argue about it or demonstrate its reality. 
But she had no doubts left. She believed, and was ready 
to stake everything on her belief that love can be stronger 
than Death and Time, can challenge them both, and 
emerge victorious. 

With head held high and steadfast eyes, she made 
ready to descend from the mountain-top, prepared to 
follow so long as life should last the banner of her high 
adventure. And upon her and all about her the spring 
sunshine shed its golden glory. 


END 













































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